The Other Minutes
by breatheinsync
Summary: "One minute, for one minute, just stand here with me." Because one minute would never be enough for either one of them, here are the others.
1. The Other Fifty-Nine

_"Ahh Liv, there you are. You've really got to look at what they have me wearing at the Town Hall tonight. I really think it's too much,"_ Mellie rambled the moment she appeared in the hallway. As soon as their eye contact broke, Fitz could almost feel the tenuous connection between himself and Olivia snap. Instantly sliding back into professional mode with a quickness that should've impressed him, she headed indoors, leaving him frowning at the space she had been occupying. The look Mellie threw him was loaded, but he barely noticed.

He turned and thanked the wall silently for its support as his back pressed against it. The sigh slid out of his mouth thoughtlessly and for a moment, he closed his eyes. He could almost pretend that she was still here. Her scent, strong yet feminine, nothing obvious or common, lingered in the air and he could still see the way she had looked at himself as he had attempted to explain, attempted to make her understand the jumble of thoughts, desires, wants, needs swirling inside of his mind. How could she comprehend what he was going through when he himself wasn't sure of what it was. He'd never before felt something so…_overwhelming_ before. He felt something inside of himself shifting, some distant feeling unearthed as her eyes had looked back up at him, open, vulnerable, honest.

Inhaling slowly, he closed his eyes for a moment and straightened, shaking himself mentally before heading back into the office, telling himself that he could focus on the campaign even as his eyes scanned the room for her, seeing her in the corner talking to Mellie and her assistant.

Olivia knew from the heat moving up over the back of her neck that he had returned to the room, knew without looking that he would be staring at her. She had felt him watching her more than a few times, but this time, everything felt different. Why had she let him tug her into the hallway, she thought, reprimanding herself silently as Mellie and her assistant chatted away about the appropriate outfit for the night. As_ his wife_ and _his wife's _assistant discussed wardrobe choices. She firmly glued the smile back onto her face and pointed to the dress and cardigan option that she knew Republican women were most likely to identify with.

"They love cardigans. With the medium length of pearls. It'll be perfect for a town hall, understated yet elegant."

"Oh Liv, you always know exactly how to deal with any crisis, even something as silly as this one," Mellie replied, her expected giggle sounding out before Olivia heard her name being called by another group in the office. Smoothly, she moved over to them and forced herself to focus on work, since there seemed to be logistics problems galore over the town hall later that night. She loved this, pushing everything aside and using her tunnel-vision to ensure that everything would be perfect for Governor Grant.

Governor Grant. The man she was going to help get elected to the highest office in the country. Governor Grant, who had stood on the other side of the door and looked at her with eyes the most ridiculous shade of blue. Olivia Pope was not the sort of woman who waxed poetic about the color of someone's irises, it was simple genetics. But she knew that she would remember the exact shade of them, light, clear, the exact way they had looked at her in that one minute. Things were changing inside of her too quickly for comfort, but she hadn't turned away from it, when he had been standing there in front of her. When the smell of his soap and aftershave invaded her senses, when she could feel the brush of his button-up shirt against the t-shirt she wore, the t-shirt with his name on it, when his face was so close to hers that his breath was a palpable caress against her skin. Turning away from him in that moment would've been a blatant lie, but more, she would've been turning away from herself.

She had tried to convince herself every day since the first that the moment they had shared, in yet another hallway in yet another strange town, had been some fluke. She had tried it again after the inching towards one another in an empty elevator, denying the nearly magnetic pull between them as they moved closer and closer. But even as she threw herself into her work, she knew that the window for denying him and protecting herself was getting smaller by the minute.

The day wound on, the office a flurry of activity and common tasks. Finally, the staff and interns began to leave for the town-hall meeting, with only a few tech aficionados remaining to keep their eyes on polling data, half the lights turned off except for their corner of the room. She was tempted to stay here, in this quiet place, where there was no potent threat to her emotional safety.

Fitz was nervous. He knew it was only a town-hall meeting, but it was a crucial moment in the campaign. Despite the hours of prep, he felt all the anxiety rushing inside of him. However much he harped at Mellie, he wanted this. He wanted to win. He wanted to make something more of his life than just being a governor. He wanted more.

He was attempting to collect his thoughts and make sense of them when he heard Cyrus ordering an intern to get Olivia when excused him and headed toward the office. And when he had opened the door, simply looking at the familiar fall of her hair along her shoulder, at the straight line of her spine, he knew that whatever this was, whatever was inside of him wasn't going to disappear.

He watched her for a few more seconds before she turned, and looked at him. Even here, in the half-light of evening, he could read her expression. He could see the surprise in her eyes, the uncertainty in them. He was sure that it was an incredibly rare thing for Olivia Pope to be unsure of anything in life. No, Olivia Pope was a woman who lived in certain terms that she controlled. Yet, here they were.

He simply cocked his head towards the door and she nodded, the exchange imperceptible to anyone but them. As she pulled her bag onto her shoulder and moved closer and closer, he couldn't stop looking at her. Finally, when she stood directly in front of him, and gingerly touched her delicate fingers to his lapel, meeting his eyes with a reassuring smile.

"Ready, Governor?"

"Yes," he replied. And there it was, the instant click. The single change of her beside him, offering him a smile, made everything inside him settle. He was no longer nervous or unsure. And that was it, he realized. A moment with her, here, was all he needed. As long as he had one minute with her, he could survive the other fifty nine.


	2. The Other Fifty-Eight

Despite her best intentions, of which she had had many, she had fallen asleep in his bed. Foolishly, she had told herself that she was just going to rest for a few moments after they had…

Olivia Pope was glad that it was dark in the room because she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks and she did not want to be the kind of woman who blushed over the thought of sex. Sex was a fact of life, and she was by no means a prude. No, she had maintained a healthy outlook when it came to the act and thought it of as another part of life, like jogging or getting a manicure. But that wasn't what was worrying her at the moment, with the room still dark and the feel of soft sheets haphazardly draped over her naked body. It wasn't the sex, it was the everything else. It was the man who was currently sleeping peacefully behind her, without worries, with his arm possessively wrapped around her waist. It was the memory of the soft words he had whispered to her, making her chuckle even as the force of her desire for him rammed through her system. No, sex was easy, but everything else was not.

Inhaling very slowly, she gave herself another moment of indulgence, to feel the firm lines of his toned chest against the delicate skin of her back, to feel his quiet breath rhythmically ruffling the hair at the nape of her neck. Slowly, moving fluidly enough to avoid waking him, she slid out from underneath his arm and stood by the edge of the bed silently. He moved but thankfully didn't awaken. She knew she was doing the right thing, even if there was a part of her mind that was reminding her that her reasons for leaving him alone in bed had nothing to do with protecting his reputation and everything to do with protecting herself. Fitzgerald Grant wasn't the sort of man who did things halfway and she imagined that trait would extend to making her fall for him.

As she slipped on the clothes that she had removed only a handful of hours before, she continued to watch him, the rise and fall of his chest soothing, the way he was on the side of the bed she'd been sleeping in. The man had no respect for personal space. She couldn't help but smile at the thought and after she was fully dressed, she allowed herself one more moment of foolishness as she bent at the waist and touched her fingers very softly to the curls messily laying against his forehead. Straightening, she grabbed her suitcase and bag and headed to her own room to figure out what the hell she was going to do about this new complication.

~

The moment he felt the ebbs of consciousness returning to him, he reached for her and came up short as he found only sheets underneath his strong fingers. With a groan, he forced himself to open an eye and managed to make out the emptiness beside him. A quiet sigh escaped before his hands rubbed over his face and he ran a hand through his hair. He looked around the room and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw that her purse and suitcase were gone. As he turned slightly and placed a hand on the pillow where she had been sleeping the last time he had been awake, he could feel the absence of her acutely. Of course she had left. Hadn't he himself suggested that she go to her own room the night before. Not that that would've changed the course of events last night, just the location, since he was almost completely sure that he would've knocked on her at some point during the night. "Fitz." He could hear the soft murmur of her voice, unexpectedly shy as it sounded out in the back of the campaign bus. The first time she had used his name. The first time they had touched, her fingers thin and cool against his. The first time she had given in to what was between them.

And here again was a first for Fitz, the first feeling of missing her. Could he have forced himself to want less if he wasn't currently remembering the way she had touched his chest with those fingers, the way her hair had tumbled out of its perfectly arranged bun, the way her eyes had looked up and into him as he moved inside of her? Would it have been easier, he wondered, if they had never been together?

He let out a soft chuckle, half-bitter and half-amused. Nothing about her or this would be easy, but nothing had or could even mean more. He had surprised himself in the van when he has spoken so honestly, asking her, no, asking himself out loud, "What kind of a coward was I to marry her and not wait for you to show up?" And he had known that she would try to put the safe distance back between them, that she would try to make it about the sex. Because he was no fool and he understood the unfairness of the situation. But easy was no longer enough for him and he would remind her that it wasn't enough for her either. Olivia Pope was no one's coward. Sliding out of the bed, he glanced at the bedside clock and it blinking 5:10 AM at him. Realizing that he couldn't do what he really wanted, which was to march down the hall and sneak into her room, he grabbed his suitcase and picked out an appropriate suit for the day, leaving them neatly on the bed as he went to shower.

~

As in sync as ever, Olivia let the hot water of her own shower drown out the worries of the morning. She had managed to catch some sleep, which meant that she had tossed and turned while her mind regaled her with surprisingly clear images from the night before. Finally, somewhere around 5, she had admitted defeat and gotten ready. As she turned the water off and wrapped a fluffy towel around herself, she wondered how she was going to play this. She knew already that no matter how hard they tried, it would happen again. Not because she was a victim to his charms or because he was a seasoned philanderer. But because even now, as she looked at the steamy image of herself in the mirror, she wanted him again. Because she wanted him. And because she could deny him for a while longer, and she would try, but she couldn't deny herself forever. And the want didn't seem to be something she could fix. As she finished getting ready for the 6 am pancake breakfast, she slid her purse onto her shoulder and opened the door, leaving it ajar as she went inside to grab her coat. When she turned around, there he was. His broad frame filled the doorway and he looked her, his eyes easy, his lips barely curved but not unhappy.

"You left," he said, the tone accusatory but without anger.

"You have a pancake breakfast and prayer meeting, Governor," she said, attempting to put some distance between them with her words even as he stepped forward into the room.

"It's funny, I don't remember that being one of the names you called out last night, Livvie." The smirk on his face was beautifully arrogant and she had to bite down on the inside of her lip to keep from laughing in encouragement.

"Well, it feels wrong to call you "jesus" or "god." I'm not really sure your ego could handle it." She added an eye-roll for effect but the warmth of their easy banter spread through her. Here it was, the everything else. The understanding. The click of their intellect. The laughter. The ease. He moved closer until he was standing in front of her, their height making it inevitable for his hands to rest on her hips, softly. Hers lifted to rest on his chest, feeling the thudding of his heartbeat against her palm.

"You can't be late for the pancake breakfast," she said, even as she tilted her head back slightly to look at him.

"I won't be," he responded, very softly brushing his mouth against hers. She nearly purred at the touch and let her eyes close for a moment as he kissed her cheeks and then looked down at her face. Collecting her thoughts, she took a breath before speaking.

"Fitz," she spoke, keeping her eyes still closed.

"Hi," he replied, his voice lower now, softer, gentle.

Her dark, thick eyelashes fluttered upward as a smile slid over her mouth, meeting his eyes again with confidence.

"Hi."


	3. The Other Fifty-Seven

If there had ever been a longer day in the history of the world, Olivia Pope had never seen it. She was bone tired and her legs hadn't ached this badly since she had been team captain of girls lacrosse in high school. To make matters worse, the sticky Texas heat had necessitated that she change her campaign t-shirt twice during the day as sweat made the fabric cling to her and she had never wanted to wear a pair of shorts more in her life. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd had anything to eat besides coffee and a freeze-pop that one of the interns had handed her. No, it seemed that her memory had decided it was much more important to remember that in the entirety of the day, she had seen Fitz only once in person.

She had stayed one campaign stop ahead of him all day, making sure everything was set up for the press stops for him and Mellie, the pair looking and acting every bit the happy couple for television. Even she had to admit that they made a lovely pair, both tall in stature, evenly matched. When the jealousy had speared through her as the sight of them played on the tv, she had forced herself to look away. If she did her job properly, she would ensure many more years of seeing the man she loved living his life with the woman he didn't. And when Cyrus had patted her shoulder encouragingly, telling her that she was a crucial part in creating Fitz the candidate, she knew that she couldn't do anything less than the best for Fitz. But her own desires and needs clamored inside of her, demanding that they be recognized With another sigh that was becoming far too common for her, she slid the hotel passcard into the lock and stepped into the room, freezing instantly as she took in the surprising sight before her.

Fitz had made himself quite comfortable on her bed, wearing his usual Navy t-shirt and a pair of black boxers. Why the simple ensemble should've aroused her so deeply, she would never understand, but there was something so powerful about him that even in his down-time, he looked like some picture from a magazine. "Fitzgerald Grant At Rest." On the nightstand beside him were two glasses and a bottle of red wine left to breathe, cabernet sauvignon, she imagined. Ever loyal to his state's wine country. His head was bent forward, scribbling something hastily before he looked up at her, the happiness instantly clear.

"Where's Mellie?" she asked, unable to stop herself as the words left her mouth. His eyes darkened slightly, the cloud of his wife moving over them.

"She was invited to speak at a Women in Power luncheon, so she took an earlier flight back to California. You know she's never meet a publicity event that she refused," he answered. He brought the glass with wine already in it to his lips and took a quiet sip.

"Hi."

Something inside of her went warm and soft at that single word. He must've known because he had made a habit of using it whenever she tried to force the distance back between them. It was such a simple greeting, the kind you gave someone without complications. As if they would go on saying it to one another forever. How foolish. But even as she tried to rebuild the wall, she could feel a brick fall for every 'Hi' or every time he looked at her in the middle of the day, as though he was making sure she hadn't disappeared suddenly.

"Hi," she said softly, dropping her bag on the floor and moving to the balcony door, opening it to let the cooling night air fill the room, staring out into the darkness as she heard him move up behind her. His hands moved to the sides of her hips as his body pressed against her back. His warm lips moved against the nape of her neck, then up to where shoulder and neck met. His mouth seemed to wander over her, his tongue peeking out to taste her skin. The heat she felt skimming along her skin had nothing to do with the Texas temperature and everything to do with him. It never failed to overwhelm her, how much she wanted him, how much pleasure they brought to one another. His hands slid over her hips, resting on the front button of her jeans before slowly, he edged her forward onto the balcony, her eyes going wide instantly as his deft fingers undid the button.

"What are you doing?" she asked, wriggling in an attempt to turn around and face him. But his arms were strong as they held her in place and guided her forward, until they were both standing outside in the night air, the railing of the balcony directly in front of her.

"Taking you," he whispered in a low voice, suddenly gruff, suddenly demanding. One hand moved to tug the zipper down and push the waistband of her jeans down her hips as his other streaked inside her campaign t-shirt and slid upward to her breast. His nose nuzzled against the back of her neck before his teeth dug into her skin, tugging on it playfully, possessively.

"Fitz, someone could see," she said, but the protestation had no threat to it and they both knew it. She couldn't find it inside of herself to care when his hands sent her entire system of control awry. And it was no good trying to convince herself that she hadn't been wanting him to touch her all day, to remind her that whatever people saw on television wasn't true. That what they had meant something. That what they had _was_ something.

~

It never seemed to end, the wanting her. He had spent the whole day doing his best to avoid snapping at Mellie since all that did was make things even more difficult for him. It had been hard enough since he had been Olivia only once in passing. During the interviews, he had forced himself to smile but it hadn't been until he had seen her enter her own room that things felt right, that the smile was genuine. He knew now that what he had been doing before her was surviving. Putting one foot in front of the other, getting through the day turning into getting through the month turning into getting through the years. But living? It had started the moment she had been unabashedly honest about the reason he wasn't gaining voters.

His fingertips smoothed over her stomach, gliding over her delicately warm skin, teasing her, tempting her. Even now, she never initiated and it bothered him more than he liked. Suddenly fierce, he tugged on her t-shirt with his teeth and used his tongue to lick at the curve of her shoulder, his hand moving up to cup her breast in his palm through her bra, the pad of his thumb moving over the barely-aroused outline of her nipple. His other hand delved inside her haphazardly tugged down jeans and cupped her between her legs, the thin fabric of her panties offering little in the way of protection as he slid two fingers along the outline of her lips. Her gasp of surprise fluidly turned into a moan as his hand moved inside her breast to take it in his palm, pinching at her nipple as he felt her press her hips back against his.

His mouth trailing upward to her earlobe and he nipped at it, her name a soft whisper on his lips as he tugged at her soft flesh. His left hand moved back to undo her bra, his fingers sliding back to alternate between stroking her nipples to hard points and gently swirling around the sides of them, purposely avoiding them until he heard her whimpers sound out in the dark balcony.

"Say it," he murmured, his voice dangerously low as his right hand teased the waistband of her panties, thumb brushing against the line of her hipbones. Even though he knew every plane, every curve, every beauty mark on her skin, he never tired of finding more. It gave him immeasurable pleasure to hear her breath go thick, to feel the slight tremble when she tried to fight her own desire for him, to discover that moment when she finally broke through her own mental barriers. He tugged her closer to him, feeling the firmness of her ass through the soft cotton of her panties and his boxers.

"Fitz," she mumbled, the end of the word trailing off into another moan as his hand slipped inside those panties and moved along the growing wetness of her pussy. He felt his erection respond immediately, felt her head drop back against his shoulder in surrender as his thumb found her clit and stroked.

~

She didn't care that they were outside, at a hotel full of staff and strangers. Everything inside of her was yearning for him with a ferocity that made logical thought impossible. When his wide palm covered her breast and he slid a single finger inside of her, she cried out his name needily. She turned in the heat of the moment and wrapped her arms around his neck, her mouth desperate to find his, eyes shut tightly as she tugged his mouth down to hers. His response was instantaneous, thoughtless, mirroring her actions as his hands moved down to her hips and hoisted her upward, pulling her body intimately against his. He turned and pressed her up against the wall of the balcony, hearing her let out a little 'umph' as she was sandwiched between the hard wall and his body, but he didn't care. He didn't have a name for what was surging through him but "want" was far too simple. Her small hands moved down and pushed at his boxers greedily, feeling his thick cock springing out against her. His tenuous grip on control snapped as her slender fingers slid between them and wrapped around him, stroking in a slow motion, making him groan against the side of her throat.

"I missed you," she said in a soft voice, so quiet as she took control of him, her fist tightening slightly before her mouth brushed against his earlobe, using her teeth on the side of them to nip. God, she knew every one of the spots on his body that made him unable to hold back.

"I need you," he replied, forcing himself to hold back from saying the words that he really felt. He knew that if he said them now, she'd simply brush them aside as words said in the heat of the moment. And he refused to let that be the case. His fingers caught hold of the side of her panties and pulled on them hard enough that they ripped, letting the ruined garment fall to the floor as she leaned back slightly. With her hand still on his length, her eyes wide open, watching his face in the dark of the sweet night air, she guided him inside of her with her breath shuddering out of her lungs.

Her eyes stayed locked on his as he moved against her, her hands moving underneath his t-shirt to his back, digging into his soft skin. She couldn't get over the warring sensations inside of her. It was never just want, just desire when they came together. It wasn't just making love, something sweet with candlelight. It wasn't fucking, hard and rough and desperate. The reason she couldn't walk away from this was because it was everything and so much more.

Her breath sobbed out of her lungs as they moved faster and faster against one another and he let out a needy little growl from low in his throat, sucking on the side of her neck, moving up to capture her mouth with his. Faster, harder, deeper now, everything falling away before her arms wrapped around him, feeling his face bury itself against her neck, his hand slipping between them to toy with her clit. Nothing turned him on as brilliantly as the sight of Livvie finding pleasure and he reveled in bringing her to that point where she was so beautifully uninhibited. He clung to her as he felt himself getting closer and closer, as he heard her moans sound out more frequently, as her fingers bruised the skin on his back and she cried out as her orgasm ripped through her body, her body shaking in his arms as he followed after her.

He held onto her as he felt the little tremors wrack her body, holding her there as the aftershocks subsided. His head rested against her shoulder for a moment as he held her pressed up against the wall, her own hands slipping out of his t-shirt to stroke his hair, fingers running through the thick locks. She chuckled quietly to herself, making him open an eye and look up at her questioningly.

"Should I be concerned that you're laughing when I'm still inside of you?" he asked her, leaning in to kiss the corners of her mouth teasingly.

"No," she replied, turning her head to kiss him with a softness that she very rarely indulged herself in. "I'm thinking that today was a good day after all."


	4. The Other Fifty-Six

In lieu of a formal introduction and melding of staffs, the Grant and Langston campaigns had decided to have a "Grant-Langston for America" barbecue. Since the formal announcement of the Republican ticket had already been made in Texas, in front of reporters and thousands of supporters, this was more celebratory and low-key. He had wanted this one moment of normalcy in the midst of the whirlwind that had become his campaign. He had demanded that it be held at his ranch and as he glanced around the very spacious backward, simple but welcoming with long, dark picnic tables, flowers beginning to unfurl themselves from buds, he knew he'd made the right choice. Seeing his children, his "people," as he'd come to think of the staff, at his house meant a great deal, but most of all, he had wanted to bring Olivia here. He could imagine what it would have been like to wander through the woody acres behind the house, to sit in the shade of the garden as the sun was reduced to embers, to talk to her as the dark spread over them. To be with her wholly.

But he had been given something extremely precious during that day. Watching her so effortlessly chat with Karen about some boy band that he hadn't heard of, making his own daughter giggle, stirred the need for her in a way that was far more troublesome than sex. Seeing her draw Jerry out of his shell and make him feel instantly at ease, talking to him about robotic engineering, a topic no one would've guessed she would be so well-versed in. And in that moment of talking to his son, she had turned her head slightly and met his eyes, and the look that passed between them had exploded like fireworks inside of him. _This is what it would've been like between us, in a simpler world._ He thought the words before he could stop himself and broke eye contact to stare down at the half empty glass of wine he held in his hand. Wanting more, he wandered back inside the house for the bottle he had been slowly consuming through the day, his thoughts still on her as he returned to his backyard. The sight he took in made his mind flash with red.

It had been one of the best days of the entire campaign so far. She had felt the change in Fitz in recent times, the exhaustion of having to keep up the image of a happy husband endlessly on camera, of doing interviews and not being able to say what he really thought because his ideas were too liberal for a Republican. He was restless and she understood it, and felt it start to invade her own mind. Where was this going? What possible ending could this have that didn't leave her clinging helplessly, powerlessly to a handful of minutes? What would they ever have between them except for a dirty little secret? She hated that her mind felt permanently cleaved in two fragments, one side reminding her that this had always been so much more than just sex and the other side reminding her that even when he touched her, he wore the ring of another woman on his finger. And that marker of possession mattered.

But today had eased some of the tension and when he'd smile earlier in the day, it had been genuine, making his bright blue eyes twinkle in a way that tugged at her. For the most part, she'd stayed away from him, not wanting to put any sort of damper on the easiness of the day. There would be other times for such worry, and she'd thrown herself into the mix, finding it easy to enjoy herself.

With her glass of wine in hand, she looked around the crowded space and saw Cyrus standing by himself near the outdoor bar, the look on his face speaking of misery. There had been rumblings from the staff that James had been seen kissing one of the members of the Langston campaign, and Olivia understood intimately how much that had to sting. She headed to him, touching her palm to his back with a warm smile.

"Hey, Cy," she offered, turning to stand beside him with her hip against the side of the bar. He looked up at her with a sad attempt at a grin, but the bitterness, the frustration was instantly clear to someone who knew where to look. Her hand stayed solidly on his back as she nodded to the bartender to refill Cyrus' drink, meaning to say something in comfort when a voice interrupted them.

"Hey, hey, you're supposed to be mingling with the Langston people!" Billy Chambers grinned foolishly at them as he moved towards the group, holding a beer in one hand and the final bite of a hot dog in the other, eating it as he waited for their response.

"Hey, hey, we're conspiring and that's strictly Grant campaign business," she retorted, keeping her body turned towards Cyrus as a clear sign to Billy that she was supremely uninterested. Though she knew many saw Billy as charming and attractive, she had never felt at ease around him and she knew to trust her gut. Her gut was never wrong. He shuffled closer, until she could catch the scent of beer on his breath, wondering what number he was on in the course of the day. Feeling him move closer, Cyrus turned around, the look on his face making it clear that there was no love lost between the two men.

"Billy, shouldn't you stay away before you get any of my gay on you?" Cyrus spoke, his eyes turning to slit even as his voice slurred the slightest bit. There had more than a few unkind whispers in the Langston campaign when referring to Cyrus' sexual orientation and though most members of the Grant campaign had been fiercely protective of one of their own, there were some who had agreed. Mostly, they had been silently tip-toeing around the discussion when faced with one another, which made this particular interaction even more unexpected. Feeling the tension, she turned her body so she stood between the two men.

"Cyrus, weren't you just telling me that you hadn't eaten a hot dog yet? I think you're contractually obligated to eat a hot dog at a barbecue," she added, meeting Cyrus' eyes with understanding. He nodded, draining the rest of his glass in one gulp and heading towards the grills. She meant to follow after him, but Billy caught her hand, holding her in place for a moment even as she tugged it out of her grasp.

"We're on the same team, Olivia," he said, moving closer until he was directly in her face. He reached out a hand, touching her shoulder lightly as he grinned at her in what she imagined was meant to be seductive but came off as menacing. Overpowering her urge to react in anger, knowing that working with him was a necessary pill for her to swallow, she simply patted his arm in affirmation.

"It would feel more believable if we weren't both aware of the unforgivable things you've said about your teammate," she responded, looking pointedly towards Cyrus. Still, she tempered her anger and forced herself to take a breath to calm herself.

"We'll have to disagree on how unforgivable they were. But in the meantime, when are you going to let me take you out now that we're no longer in competition?" His smile grew and he took a step closer, his hand reaching down to touch her hand.

Fitz had seen every movement play out before him, the angle allowing him to catch Olivia moving closer to Billy, moving between him and Cyrus. He continued to stare, the hand not currently wrapped around his wine glass forming a fist when he saw Billy reach for her. From his distance, he couldn't see the glare on her face, couldn't quite read the body language, but when the other man touched her shoulder and she didn't move away, when he then brushed his hand against hers, Fitz heard a faint roaring start between his ears and he took a sip of the wine to deal with the dryness of his throat. Another man was touching the woman he loved and it took every bit of control to not dash across the yard. _And do what exactly?_ he thought in annoyance. He knew, in the logical part of his brain, that if he tried to stake some sort of claim to her, he would be the world's biggest hypocrite. Because she wasn't his. Couldn't be his, when he couldn't belong to her fully.

But his thoughts were consumed and he had noticed nothing, not even the fact of Mellie's sudden appearance at his side.

"Fitz, honey, they want to take a few candid shots of us," she said as she climbed up the steps to stand beside him, pressing eagerly into his side. He blinked at her, comprehending nothing until he saw the flash of the photographer's bulb.

"Just checking for the light, Mrs. Grant," the man said, moving around to find the perfect angle for the first couple of California. Mellie giggled as she slid her arms around his waist, pretending to be oblivious to everything in front of company. He wondered often if she suspected, based upon the pointed look she had given him in the hallway after the first "one minute" but she hadn't brought it up. Still, while part of him feared the confrontation, there was a part of him that...welcomed it. That reveled at the thought of living out in the open, of being free to love in the daylight, to not feel this cloying sense of frustration at every publicity stunt.

Downing the rest of the wine like it wasn't an expensive bottle from his private collection, he braced himself as he put his arm around his wife, leaving a bit of space between him. But the photographer simply pushed them closer together, as though they were show-ponies and Fitz empathized with those poor creatures at the moment. Sighing audibly, he simply played along and smiled at the camera. The faster he got through faking it with his wife, the faster he could get himself away from this. The whole ordeal was over within a few minutes for him.

Olivia had stood rooted in her spot at the sight, mirroring Fitz's stance only a few moments before. She watched, momentarily frozen, as Fitz and Mellie wrapped their arms around one another in the bright, glittering sunlight, on the porch of their own house and smiled at one another. Like a couple. Like two people who had promised to love, honor and cherish each other forever. The ease of the day slid out of her stomach and was replaced by a huge ball of dread. Why had she let it get this far, she asked, chastising herself. To this point where the mere sight of them made her feel as though someone had yanked the ground right out from underneath her. She was disappointed in herself as she felt the sting of tears and set her mouth, forcing herself to regulate her breathing, bringing a sense of calm to herself.

Still, misery made itself a comfortable companion of hers for the rest of the day, even as she forced herself to mingle with members of the Langston campaign. Cyrus' moment of great weakness seemed to have passed and he was his usual acerbically charming self the rest of the evening, which should've made her feel better. But it didn't. Though she understood people and was good at her job, she had always been a solitary character and it seemed too late in life to change that, even if she had had any desire to do such a thing. _Except for Fitz, _an irritating little voice in her mind reminded her. The reminder made her especially cautious in avoiding Fitz for the rest of the day.

Yet, like all days, this day passed, and late in the evening, when all the local staffers and most of the core staff had gone back to the hotel, Olivia found herself sitting on a porch swing with Cyrus. What an image they must've made. Both pining stoically over the men they couldn't have, resenting themselves in the process. Love made fools of everyone in the end, as she had always believed.

"Should I get more water into you before you drive us back to the hotel?" she asked him, the corner of her mouth curving upward crookedly.

"I think I've moved past drunk to narrowly avoiding death, but it couldn't hurt" he answered, meeting her eyes. She nudged his arm with an elbow and headed back towards the kitchen, watching the caterers and cleaning staff shuffle around busily. Hoping she could avoid Fitz, she located one of the coolers and headed straight for it, believing herself to be in the clear until she turned, looking up into the face of the very person she had been hoping to avoid.

"Oh Liv, you're still here," a voice spoke out from behind him as their eyes met, his looking at her with an intensity that made her wonder what was on his mind. Forcing herself to break the contact, she turned to look at Mellie.

"I just getting some water for Cyrus before we headed back to the hotel," she responded, holding up the two bottles. "Thanks again for having all of us here, Mellie. It was very much appreciated by everyone and I'm sorry on their behalf for the mess."

"Oh not at all. Thankfully, the caterers have their own cleaning staff so it's not my headache," she informed Olivia with her little giggle following after. "Also, just between us girls," she added, her voice lowering conspiratorially, "did I see you talking to Billy Chambers earlier today?"

"Oh, yes, of course. He's Sally Langston's Cyrus, so I thought it would make things run more smoothly during this transition," she answered, looking longingly at the door, wanting to leave, and avoiding Fitz's gaze pointedly. She could feel him watching her but she refused to meet his eyes again. It only got them both into trouble.

"I didn't mean professionally, silly. He's a very handsome man, Billy," Mellie said, looking at her pointedly, before she issued another laugh. The long day, the glasses of wine, the heat had already made Olivia tired but having to listen to Mellie's giggling was starting to wear on her.

"I'm sure he is," she replied, not bothering to hide the terse tone to her words.

"He's single, you know," Mellie went on, clearly refusing to recognize or acknowledge Olivia's tone.

"Come on now. Let's not distract Olivia from the all-important goal of getting me elected as president," Fitz interrupted, his words laced with a quiet bitterness that anyone who didn't know him wouldn't have noticed. But Olivia did and it made her look up at him. Made her see the longing in his eyes. The barely controlled fury. Worse, the impotence. His eyes seemed to plead for understanding, to plead for _her, _but she looked away, focusing at Mellie with a wide smile.

"Maybe once we've ensured Fitz is in the White House and you're the First Lady, I'll let you use your incredible power for personal use," she answered, forcing herself to keep it light, to brush it off. Mellie smiled widely and leaned forward to kiss Olivia's cheeks, left then right.

"Drive safely," she added, but Olivia had already moved away from both of them, moving briskly until she was outside, not stopping on the porch for Cyrus. She simply murmured, "Let's go," as she kept walking, her petite legs moving quicker than expected until she was in the car again, sitting in the passenger's seat with her palms on her thighs, forcing herself to breathe before she cracked. Within a few more seconds, Cyrus was behind the driver's seat, looking at her questioningly.

"I think I ate something bad," she mumbled at an attempt at explaining. With a shrug and a few drinks of the water bottle he passed over her, he drove her back to the hotel, further and further away from Fitz, from the endless waves of sorrow crashing inside of her, from feeling everything she had seen earlier tonight, in his eyes.

**_**  
**Author's Notes: This is my first fanfic since I first met, and promptly fell in love with, Remus Lupin in HP. Clearly I have a bad habit of falling for fictional characters. Anyway, the support from everyone has been incredible and it's a huge part of making me continue writing. So, thank you so very much for the reviews. I just wanted you to know, dear reader, that it means a lot. :)**


	5. The Other Fifty-Five

It was 4:30 am, the sky pink-tipped at the edges, as Olivia let herself into the Grant campaign headquarters. The night before, when she'd gotten back the most recent polling numbers for Grant versus Reston, they had worried her immensely. She allowed for the fact that it was only mid-April and that the campaign's popularity had only recently begun to grow, through the use of social media and more public appearances pushing the image of the happy Grant couple. Governor Reston had been in the political sphere for longer, giving him an advantage she had fully accounted for. Still, the information she'd received was troubling her. No, that wasn't fully true. What was bothering her was the rest of the previous night.

~

She had fully intended to deal with the situation as soon as it had been brought to her attention, despite the lateness of the hour. Halfway through tugging on her jeans and finding a sweater to wear, there was a knock on her door. Even without looking, she knew it would be Fitz. Who else would be foolish enough to knock on her door at 20 minutes past midnight? With a resigned sigh, she opened the door to see him standing nonchalantly before her, holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a newspaper in the other. His eyebrows raised questioningly when he took in her choice of attire.

"Going somewhere at..." he trailed off to check his watch, "12:20 am?"

"I need some of the polling data that I left at the office," she answered, sliding her head into the sweater and pulling it down over her torso. "Where is your wife?" Sometimes she felt that she would spend forever repeating that single question over and over to him.

"She took some migraine medication and is sleeping. The data can't wait until tomorrow?" he asked, moving into the room without waiting for her invitation. He set the wine on the bedside table and sat at the edge of the bed, leaning back with his palms on the covers of the bed. She shook her head at him before rummaging around in her rolling suitcase for a pair of socks, sitting on the edge of her bed as she began to pull them up slowly over her delicate feet.

"Livvie," he said, his voice barely a whisper, a breathy wish. The tone of it forced her to turn her head slightly, straightening up from her slightly bent position to meet his eyes with a quizzical expression on her face. It struck her instantly, the absence of the words, the way they flashed into his eyes without a moment's hesitation. _I need you, I want you, stay with me._

Things had changed between them in the past few weeks, and she could nearly pin-point the exact moment it had happened, at the Grant-Langston celebration. Since she had witnessed him on the back porch, since she had seen an alternate possibility for his happy future, she had tried her best to distance herself from Fitz. It had been surprisingly easy to do when she'd decided to stay behind at the California headquarters of the campaign and he'd been on the road for large chunks of time, doing press stops with Mellie. She had finally re-discovered the solid ground beneath her feet for the first time since she'd joined the campaign. The workload had given her the perfect excuse to throw herself fully into the campaign and she finally felt like herself.

But here they were again.

Fitz sat up fully, his right hand reaching for her, her body bracing itself for his touch to her hip. Instead, his fingertips brushed against her cheek and she could feel the resolve she had tried to store up begin to drain in response. Her lips pursed for moment, watching his face closely for clues but he touched her so gingerly, as though he was understood that the slightest intensity would break the contact. She meant to slide her hand to soothingly touch his knuckles, to move his hand away from her face, he simply took her hand in his, turning it until they were palm to palm, fingers threading together as he watched her silently.

~

He had never felt quite as empty as he had the past few weeks. It had been easy, simple, to survive life when he hadn't known about her existence. He saw his life in two parts, the Before and After. It was possible to survive, to be content in the Before, but the After was more difficult, more painful, with more potential for utter devastation. But the joys of the After were honest, real and worth every bit of sorrow. But since the bbq, he had been living in a daze, thrown back into the Before without warning. He had tried to understand at first, her decision to give them some breathing room. For the briefest second, he had even endured the possibility of her wanting something more simple with someone more simple. He had been able to survive again with misery as his traveling partner on the road, burrowing inside of himself to cope with long days of in transit spent with Mellie.

But coming back here, to this world where her presence was everywhere? It had snapped him out of his daze. He had thought of nothing else the entire day, distracted and irritable, until now. Again, he felt that resonance between them and when her small, fragile palm fit against his, he felt himself settling back into his skin. On a gentle sigh, needing comfort more than anything else for both of them, he simply slid his arm around her waist and tugged her forward until she was cradled on his lap. Both arms slipped around her waist, his face buried into the lovely curve where her shoulder and neck met. When she had been pulled forward, he had felt, for the tiniest second, the resistance, but it passed as quick as it had appeared and her arms moved around his neck, her ladylike fingers sliding through his hair. He clung to her as though he were a drowning man, her existence a life-jacket for him. Neither of them spoke, holding on to one another as their heartbeats began to regulate, their breathing in sync as the seconds passed. Here was everything.

~

Though she wasn't a callous person, it took a great deal to elicit an emotional response from her. But here, the need nearly brimming over from Fitz, she couldn't help herself. She couldn't hold herself back from him when she felt his pain, understood it with such intimacy. Her hands skimmed along his back, soothing both of them with the contact before she lifted her head, kissing his temples sweetly before leaning back to meet his eyes.

"So, the newspaper?" She asked, motioning towards it with her thumb.

"Crossword puzzle," he replied, looking up at her with the beginning hints of a smile appearing on his face. She didn't bother to hide her own as her lips curved upward unabashedly.

"It's been a while since we've done one of those together," she told him, her fingers unable to stop from stroking a hand over his shoulder.

"I remember," he answered, the twinkle in his eye ensuring her that he remembered the event with the same fondness she felt for it. With a full grin now, she slid off his lap and moved to the dresser, grabbing the coffee mugs the hotel had supplied and filling them with wine. Fitz tugged off his shoes and jeans, wearing just a t-shirt and a pair of well-fitted boxers to bed. Whenever they managed to undress without the frenzy of sexual anticipation, which was quite rare for them, he always folded his clothes and set them neatly nearby. She imagined it was a result of his time in the Navy and it stirred something inside of her.

She watched him quietly as he turned down the bed, seeing him fluff the pillows and set them against the headboard so they could do the crossword together. _How domestic,_ a small voice spoke in her mind. It was so rare that they had time for such things, such simple, mundane things that meant a great deal to her. She catalogued them in her mind, always prepared for the day when there would be nothing left to add to the list. But for now, he was here, sliding into the bed, the covers tugged up to his knees as usual, before he motioned her over to the bed. She pulled off her own jeans and sweater, tugging on a ratty college t-shirt that she'd stolen from him on their last night together before joining him on the bed. With a hand resting against his cheek, she leaned in and kissed him lightly, without urgency, as though this sort of night could be a regular thing for them and they'd have a thousand other kisses.

"Alright, first up. '_ she lovely? by Stevie Wonder'."

"Really, Fitz, are you going to pretend like you don't have more Stevie Wonder albums than I do? Are you going to pretend that you don't have more Stevie Wonder albums than my entire family does?" She spoke, pursing her lips to keep from laughing, pretending to be serious for a moment. He scoffed at her before filling in the word, his handwriting as neat as he was.

"I just happen to have good taste in music," he answered.

"Old school music," she said, taking a sip of her mine as her eyes met his over the rim of the mug.

"Did you just call me old?" He wondered out loud, raising an eyebrow even as he slowly placed the crossword and the pencil on the bedside table, taking the mug out of her hands and adding it to the pile.

She tried to look coy, pretending as though she couldn't feel her skin heating up instantaneously from the way he was looking at her. Like a cupcake or some other delectable pastry. She shrugged in false innocence and before she could say anything to defend herself, she found herself laying flat on her back with his hand streaking over her stomach to her breast, sliding the tips of his fingers along the side of them.

"Maybe you should remind me of your vitality," she said, her lips rubbing along the side of his ear before she used her bottom teeth to scrape against the lobe.

"Maybe I will," he replied. And he proceeded to remind her for the next hour.

~

She should've been filled with happiness after the night before, glowing like some cliche heroine. But the demands of their schedule had necessitated that he leave right after sex. So when she had woken up, it had been alone and it was the only scent of him on her sheets and the slight soreness of her muscles that confirmed that he had indeed been there.

As she made her way towards her area at the campaign headquarters, looking down at the neat little rows of numbers, looking at the room she was standing in, she felt a sense of loss. To an outsider, it would seem as though she had chosen Fitz the night before, comforting him in his time of sadness, over the job. She had put the campaign on the back burner long because he had needed her. But to Olivia, it felt as though she had chosen him over herself. She thought of herself as the embodiment of her job and failing at it meant that she was a failure. Last night, in her eyes, had been a betrayal of herself when she had ignored the pressing need to deal with the new polling data.

Now, in the cold light of morning, in new clothes and her career-hat back on, she thought of the price of loving him. He took a piece of her every time they made love, a bit every time she chose to spend her time figuring out ways to be with him instead of gaining new supporters, a chunk when she had to lie to everyone around her and keep up the facade of perfection. Now, alone in the office, she felt as though loving him meant losing herself.

_

**Author's Notes: I imagine that this is what Olivia Pope believes about their love, her whole "victim" complex. I disagree with it personally, but, I think it's what she believes. I think that their love costs both of them a great deal, but it's a price worth paying when you've found that connection. Anywho, reviews make me update faster *hint hint* **


	6. The Other Fifty-Four

Olivia Pope didn't do birthdays. Especially her own. When her phone rang in the middle of a strategy meeting for the next series of campaign stops, she silenced it immediately, switching it to vibrate until it began to buzz on her lap. The questioning looks and intrigued glances from varying members of the group made her silence it completely, looking down at it long enough to recognize that she had three missed calls from Harrison and one from Abby. Trust them to remember this mundane bit of information. She let the thought drop from her mind as she brought herself back to the focus of the meeting.

~

The campaign seemed to have rediscovered its stride with rumors in the political arena surfacing about the possibility of Governor Reston's wife having her own affair. The irony of the situation was lost on no one in the Grant campaign, which had dealt with the very same rumors aimed at Mellie, least of all Olivia. This news had come as a relief for Olivia and Cyrus especially since it allowed them to press forward with Fitz's desire to run a clean campaign.

During one of their early mornings together at the office, Cyrus had voiced his concerns about the direction the campaign was headed and she couldn't help but understand the truth of her mentor's words. She doubted there was anyone in the world who was more of a political animal than Cyrus Beene. But more than that, she understood that especially for a Republican, it was important to be seen as decisive and powerful. While Fitz's image was charming, erudite and immensely likeable, she could see that the idea of him as commander wasn't fully realized. Instead, Fitz came off as an attractive man who was getting into politics because he had nice hair and family attachments on his father's side. Part of her couldn't help but wonder if he'd grow to fit the mantle of power. He had the potential for greatness, sure, but she wasn't sure he had the stomach necessary for the difficult realities of leadership. The expectations. The demands. The cruelty of humanity.

She both loved and resented him for his innocence. He might have been a married man, a father of two, and the man who was currently running for president, but sometimes, she felt that he lacked life experiences. In so many ways, he had been shielded from the uglier side of reality. She wondered how he would react when he discovered that not everyone lived by the same strict set of morals as him. Especially in Washington, morality was just another commodity to be bought and sold at the highest gain. It would take a great deal, she imagined, for Fitz to recognize and she imagined he wouldn't come away unscathed when he did.

~

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, seeing her contemplating something serious as he caught the movement of her teeth nibbling at the inside of her mouth. He wondered if she even knew she did it, the instinctual little move whenever she seemed to be caught up in her thoughts. Some part of his brain filed away each of these facts about her inside of him. Instead, his thoughts turned towards the disappointment he felt at the moment. She hadn't even bothered to tell him it was her birthday. No, he recalled, it had been Mellie of all people who had passed along the bit of information she'd picked up from Cyrus. Cyrus had known before he had. Mellie had known before he had. It continued to gnaw at him as the meeting came to an end and members of his staff began to disperse to their respective work areas.

She spared him a glance before moving off toward Cyrus' area, bending slightly to speak to him in hushed tone before he raised an eyebrow slightly but listened, nodding quietly. Straightening again, he watched as she touched a hand to his shoulder, walking briskly over to the coffee machine to get her first cup of coffee for the day.

~

When her phone finally vibrated for the fourth time in the past three hours, she grabbed it and headed outside to the small courtyard area outside their office. Forcing herself to neither be nor sound irritable, she answered it with an air of ease..

"Hey Harrison," she said, trying to keep it light.

"Liv, you'll never believe what day it is," she heard him answer, the familiar teasing tone of his voice putting her at ease. Though she wasn't the sort of person who opened up to many people, Harrison was one of the few that she knew she could count on without doubts. He felt much more like family, although she hadn't exactly grown up with family that she felt as close to as she did him.

"Try me," she replied, closing her eyes as she touched her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, putting some pressure on the point there. She could feel the beginnings of a headache swirling in her skull and hoped to avoid it as best as possible.

"Well, I heard these unconfirmed rumors that it's your birthday today and since you're nowhere near me, I figured calling would be the best option to wish you a happy birthday! Until I get enough money for my private jet, of course," he said, laughing more to himself than her. She couldn't help but chuckle in response and felt the headache start to retreat.

"It's probably for the best that you don't get such fancy ideas since my bail-Harrison-out-of-jail account is running low at the moment," she retorted, knowing that the rapport they had allowed for such snark. His sharp laugh on the other end proved her thoughts to be true.

"I'll put some more money in it for next time," he responded back. For a moment, they were both quiet and she waited for him to speak.

"Thanks," she added, silent again.

"Anytime. Call if you need me." The words spoken were normal, but his tone spoke of his utter loyalty to her. For the handful of personal relationships she had cultivated in her life, theirs was one she greatly appreciated.

"I will."

"Alright, go get your man elected." She was glad for the fact that he couldn't see her face and the tell-tale widening of her eyes at his particular choice of words. Forcing herself to laugh lightly, she nodded before speaking again.

"I will. Bye."

"Bye."

~

The work allowed her to keep her mind away from the date and she was glad for it. As the day winded down, she felt a strange wave of anticipation as the office got suddenly quieter. Looking around, most people left were huddled together in groups, with Cyrus and Britta Kagan most noticeably absent. They, along with her, almost always stayed afterward late into the night and as she wondered where they were, the motion of the door opening caught her eye.

Fitz was walking into the room, flanked on either side by Cyrus and Mellie, and in his hands was a perfectly frosted, strawberry-covered birthday cake with candles all around the edges. Her eyes went wide as he walked over to her, everyone in the room turning towards them, and she felt her heart squeeze when he met her eyes with a slow smile. The others in the room broke out into a rendition of "Happy Birthday" that wasn't quite on pitch, but even as she felt the scars inside of her stir back to life, she enjoyed their appreciation and celebration of her.

"Didn't think we'd forget the birthday of our star campaign fixer, did you?" He spoke, his voice following the end of the song. She forced herself to push down at everything else, focusing on keeping up her image of normalcy and offering him a wide grin in response that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"I could only hope," she said the words, but her polite chuckle took all of the sting out of it as Fitz placed the cake on the table. He looked up at her expectantly before she moved forward, looking down at all the candles on the cake.

"How old do you think I am?" she asked, counting the candles before she realized that there were about 50 or so.

"Well, I bought an entire pack of them and I didn't want to waste them," Britta started, her voice slightly apologetic even as she smiled slowly. "Plus, I'm just trying to ensure you're around for a long life."

Olivia couldn't help but smile in genuine happiness this time, touching a hand to her heart.

"This is very sweet of all of you to go through the trouble. Unnecessary, but I'm touched," she spoke, looking around the room.

"Hey, hey, it's my turn to give a speech as the man you've been campaigning so hard for," Fitz said, a playful look on his face. His smile softened though as he took a few steps towards her. "And I will try to keep it short or you'll critique what I'm saying as I say it."

There was light laughter before he continued.

"Now it's pretty common knowledge that we didn't start off on the best foot, considering how boldly you criticized the way we were handling the campaign. But I'm glad to say that you have far less to complain about now that you've taken the reins," he said, his smile curving crookedly, a sign of amusement. "And that in the time you've been here, you've proven yourself to be not only indispensable to the campaign and as a part of our team. I think I speak for everyone here when I say how grateful we are to have you on our side, and not just because we like winning. So happy birthday and I hope we get to celebrate many more together...all of us." The last words were added hastily as he could've sworn he almost felt the glare from Mellie.

Cyrus patted Fitz's shoulder before stepping forward, adding simply, "Your time here has just proven to me that I made the right choice in calling you the best student I ever had. Happy birthday."

Though his speech was much less gushing than Fitz's, the words meant just as much to her and she locked them away in a safe place inside of herself. Keeping her eyes on Cyrus' in order to avoid looking at Fitz, she spoke.

"This campaign is a team effort and I couldn't be more proud to be a part of a team than this one. Thank you, for all of it," she said, the words simple and heartfelt. "Now, I want cake."

~

The next morning, Olivia lay on her stomach, her dark curls falling around her shoulders, her forearms resting on the bed and her head lifted enough so she could turn her head to look at him. He lay on his side, his tricep resting on the bed, his head resting against his palm as he lazily stroked a fingertip along the curve of her spine, her skin smooth and bare underneath his. He had taken advantage of Mellie's appearance at a women's fundraiser and they had spent the full hour celebrating her birthday the way he found highly appropriate.

"You didn't tell me it was your birthday," he said, the words slightly accusing but the question behind them was clear.

"I don't do birthdays. You're just another year older. I don't quite see the cause for celebration that you managed to stay alive for another year."

"Livvie, not even you are that much of a cynic," he replied, scoffing slightly at her even as his fingertips continued to dance along the small of her back.

She shrugged a shoulder nonchalantly upward before sliding towards the edge of the bed, until he caught her arm, holding her lightly but firmly.

"Your wife will be back soon," she spoke, trying to use the words to put the wall back up between them. But he knew her far too well to fall for such a cheap trick.

"That doesn't have quite the same ring to it when you're still naked and your skin's still warm from sex," he spoke, easing his hand under her arm before tugging her closer. She wriggled for a moment before he grinned wickedly and simply solved the matter by tickling the spot he knew right on the side of her ribcage. She laughed helplessly as he pulled her into his side.

"Fitz, stop," she told him, attempting to wriggle away.

"This is what people who are involved do. They tell each other things. They share. They let one another in."

She tilted her chin up at him defiantly but there was something there, behind the curiosity. Hurt. Resting her hand against his chest, watching her darker skin and slim fingers press against his broad torso, she spoke quietly, keeping her eyes on his collarbone.

"I was an only child growing up, so I was kind of a brat. On my fifth birthday, I threw a bit of a fit because my mother had forgotten to get Yoo-hoo for my party. So in the middle of getting everything ready for the birthday party, she left to pick some up from the gas station closest to our house," her voice was soft, vulnerable, exposed in a way Fitz had never heard before. It unsettled him.

His hand smoothing along her hip comforted her and she continued.

"Long story short, robbers held her and the store owner up at gunpoint for money and when the owner refused to pay, they shot him and my mother."

His eyes went wide and his hand stilled at her words. He felt as though he'd been punched in the gut and for a minute, felt his mind go blank with sorrow for her. Slowly, he gathered her closer, sliding down until they were face to face. Her eyes were closed as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured in a gentle voice. She nodded silently, her arm moving around his waist, her hand resting on his back. It was such a rare thing to allow herself to be comforted, but she figured that in that moment, he needed it just as much as she did. Though she didn't cry, he felt the change in her, the softening. She felt suddenly small and incredibly fragile against him when she let him soothe her.

Part of him understood now, her wariness, her unwillingness to get close to people, to let people into her life. He imagined it was difficult to do so when people you cared about, people you loved, could be ripped from you in a matter of seconds. The thought mulled in his mind as he clung more tightly to her, his lips traveling down to her shoulder, burying his face there. They lay there silently, still except for his hand moving along her side and back, soothing her as he would a child. Neither of them spoke in fear of ruining the intimacy of the moment. She had let him in and though it didn't feel different, in the haven of his embrace, it was different for both of them now. Things so often changed in the blink of an eye.

_  
**A/N: I long for the day when Shonda Rhimes and the Scandal writers finally give us Olivia's backstory, because in 2x11 when we met Big Jerry, everything about Fitz fell into place. In the meantime, I'll let my imagination play through the ideas. As always, dear readers, thank you for your support and reviews. Your words, of encouragement and thoughtful musings, mean the world to me. **


	7. The Other Fifty-Three

Olivia had finally settled into her sleek, ivory-colored couch for the night, wearing a pair of thin white pajamas, silky to the touch. Although she kept careful control over the rest of her life, she indulged herself when it came to clothes. They brought her a sense of pleasure that was uncomplicated. The tv was turned on, the news playing in the background with the sound low. Since the Grant-Langston camp didn't have any crucial press stops within the next few days, Cyrus had told her to take the time to go home for a few days and prep for the next big push for campaigning.

She had been about to protest when she remembered the last moment she had shared with Fitz, when he had seen her at an extremely vulnerable place, when he had offered her comfort in her time of need. When she had needed him. That was a particularly dangerous train of thought and she kept silent instead, agreeing with Cyrus that a few days back home before the campaign picked up speed as they got closer to November would be nice. She had later felt the familiar little pinpricks on the back of her neck when Cyrus told Fitz and she had to dig her nails into her palm to keep from turning around. It wasn't cowardly, she told herself. It was the right thing to do, to give both of them some breathing room.

The air had felt thick between them every moment since the day she had let him in. It had been a mistake, a tactical error on her part because she hadn't been able to think. She'd relied on her feelings, and as they often did, they lead her astray. In the two weeks between then and now, they had only found time alone once and though they'd started out greedy and frantic as usual, it had softened. He touched her differently now, with more softness than before. It unnerved her and the distance was easing some of her discomfort over the changes.

She'd checked in with the campaign office earlier that day, but thankfully she'd only had to speak with Cyrus. He had told her that they had only kept half the staff in the office during the day, letting everyone else out to generate buzz in the community in Florida. She hadn't escaped him completely, though, having seen a few pictures on the national news of him at an impromptu baseball game. Charming people instantly, without trying, and later, his face aglow with genuine joy when he joined in to play with them. She was sure that he didn't fully comprehend his magnetism. She'd changed the channel immediately after and done everything to keep her thoughts off him the rest of the day.

Grabbing a handful of popcorn, she changed the channel to her guilty pleasure, a satirical political talk show. Her petite legs curled up underneath her as she reached for her glass of wine, her cell phone buzzing on the seat beside her. With a raised eyebrow, she looked at the clock on the wall and realized that it was already 11:30. A sigh of mingled frustration and disappointment in herself breathed out of her as she looked down at the number. Who else would be calling her now but him? It was as though he knew when she was beginning to build up her defenses again, to finally return to some modicum of normalcy.

"Hello," she said, hoping the word would keep them at an emotional distance, though she knew she wouldn't succeed.

"Hi," he replied, his voice low.

~

It had been a surprisingly pleasant day for the most part, the weather warm and the sunshine holding through the day. He'd been able to spend the majority of it being outside, talking to members of the community in the small Florida town and shaking hands. The highlight was when they'd stumbled onto an after-school program with kids playing baseball. He'd joined in with an enthusiasm that had both the townspeople and his campaign staffers laughing easily, but as he breezed past the bases with his long legs, he felt so free. So unburdened.

With his breath rushing in his lungs, and holding a cup of Kool-Aid that one of the kids had shyly offered him, he felt right again. He very nearly looked around the group for Olivia, but he knew perfectly well that she'd gone home for the weekend. The whole weekend. Without telling him, of course. He pushed those thoughts aside for the rest of the day, telling himself that they'd be there at the end of it for him to worry about. Instead, he allowed the simplicity of spending time with normal people to ease some of this cares.

It was around 11 when he finally got back to the room, finding Mellie engrossed in her nightly bedtime ritual of primping. Her hands were wider, her fingers longer, than Olivia's. Yet, his hand had never felt…full when holding hers. No, it had been Olivia's that had made him feel complete. Mellie looked up at him for just a moment, her eyes flicking over his, not meeting, not connecting.

Pursing his lips, he left the room and wandered back downstairs, stopping by the bar downstairs to order a quick drink. He finished the whiskey in two large gulps and felt the heat of it begin to move through him. It began to warm him as he headed outside, wandering until he found a quiet, deserted spot under a tree. Sitting on the wooden bench, he dialed.

"Hello," he heard her say. It wouldn't work.

"Hi," he answered, letting his eyes close for a moment so he could imagine that they weren't on the phone. That she was sitting on the other end of the bench. Although that wasn't quite believable since he'd be bound to touch her. To pull her closer. To breathe every moment with her in.

"Did you need something?"

"Yes," he replied honestly. But held back from adding, you. I need you. I need you so much sometimes that I forget how to breathe. He touched a hand to his heart, as though the pain was a physical thing. Instead, he asked, "When do you get back?"

"I'll be back at the office on Monday. I've been in touch with Cyrus all day and he said that things were going well at the campaign."

"Well, Cyrus wouldn't know about what I need right now," he said, his tone playful and laced with enough smugness to draw out her own sense of humor. When she snorted on the other end of the line, he felt the tightness in his chest ease.

"I think Cyrus knows far more about what you need than you'd be comfortable thinking about."

"Liv! Why would you put that image into my head? That worked better than a cold shower."

"They don't pay me the big bucks for nothing."

"I don't think turning me off is what we're paying you for but I'll read the fine print later."

"Did you have a real reason for calling?" she asked, though the tone was less distant than before, the voice quieter, more relaxed.

"I was going to seduce you into having phone sex with me but I don't know if I can now," he said, his fingers running over the hard wood of the bench. Such a contrast to what he would be feeling if it was her skin.

"Is that so? Good thing that we just skipped the part where you asked about the color of my panties and I hung up on you."

"Livvie?"

"Hmm?" she asked, her eyes closed now as well, her head resting against the back of the couch, snuggling up in the nook between the back and the arm of the chair.

"What color are those panties?" he asked, his voice huskier now, the sound it making a tiny shiver run up her spine.

"Who says I'm wearing any?" she retorted with a smirk in her words. The returning groan made her lips curve upward in pleasure. "For all you know, I could be walking around my apartment naked."

"Have I mentioned lately how cruel you are?"

"I don't think you have. Only that you find me irresistible." Hearing the hint of laughter in her voice made the desire for her take on a new hue, a sudden urgency for her. Not just for the sex. For the companionship. For the understanding between them. For her.

"Are you sure you shouldn't come back tomorrow? You never know what sort of campaign disasters could occur between now and Monday," he told her, hoping his voice sounded light and didn't reflect the frustration inside of him.

"You're in good hands."

~

"Are you sure…" he asked. She was uncomfortable with how much she wanted to return. Despite her best efforts, she hadn't been able to stop herself from missing him. Not in a resounding, take-over-your-whole-day, leave-you-immobile way. No, she was an adult. The missing him had become a part of her, like a dull throbbing. It simply existed inside of her.

"You're in good hands," she replied primly, opening her eyes and uncurling her legs up from underneath her. The wine did nothing to soothe the thirst and she set it aside, staring resolutely at the wall. "You should probably get some sleep. It's Sunday and we know how Republicans love their early morning services."

"Livvie," he said, the word loaded, heavy with the weight of all the things they kept themselves from saying to one another. Come back to me. I feel incomplete without you. Closing her eyes again, she pressed her palm to the couch seat beside her, brushing her thumb across its softness.

"Fitz," she whispered in return, giving something back to him despite her best efforts. She felt forever weak when it came to him. The quiet sigh on the other end soothed her.

"I miss you," he added, his voice firm even in its low tone.

"I know," she replied, not ready to give the words back to him. "I'll see you Monday."

"Alright," he said, sounding suddenly sad.

She hung up and tossed the phone aside, beginning to clean up. It was as good a time as any to make her way to her bed, she figured. Her empty bed. Why did it feel like this? She had spent her entire life being mostly single. Even when she'd been in serious relationships, she had enjoyed her alone time immensely, treasured it. She had never felt the lack of something, someone, so acutely.

The room darkened as she turned off the rest of the lights and moved to her bedroom, only her bedside lamp casting light. No moon tonight, she thought as she stood at the window, her arms crossed over her chest. No chance for some foolish idea about the two of them staring up at the same moon.

~

He stayed outside, breathing in the night air even after the call ended. She hadn't said it back was all he could think. He threw back his head and looked up at the darkness of the night sky. It looked so overwhelmingly dark, with no moon to offer a break from it, to soften it. How apropos. No respite from such darkness

Running a hand through his hair, he was about to put the phone back in his pocket when it rang again. With a quizzical expression on his face, he answered it.

"Livvie?"

"I miss you too," she spoke, her eyes closed as she steeled herself to be honest with him.

He didn't speak for a moment, savoring the words, the meaning of them. They were both silent, breathing in the other's presence despite the miles of distance.

"Monday," he said, the word a promise.

"Monday," she answered.

And just like that. No moon, but millions of tiny, dazzling stars.

**A/N: Have I mentioned lately how much I love your reviews? Because they give me all the life that the hiatus has sapped from me. (Although new episode THIS THURSDAY. ICAN'TWAIT!) Anyway, dear readers, thank you for reading! **


	8. The Other Fifty-Two

_Olivia's eyes were wide open, dark, as he slid on top of her petite form. The bed dipped slightly underneath them, at their combined weight. His hands wandered over her, sliding here, stroking there, arousing, exploring her as though she was a map of pleasure. Her arms lifted greedily to wrap around him, fingers disappearing into the dark thickness of his curls, tugging his mouth to hers, tasting the faint hint of herself on his tongue. The juncture of her hips parted to make room for him, the blood surging inside of her as she felt the evidence of his need against the delicate skin at the inside of her thigh. She dropped her head back onto the pillow and slid her hands down the muscles on his back, lower, lower, to his hips, meeting his eyes._

_Even now, with the lights dimmed down, the darkness resting against the half-open doors of the balcony, she knew the color of them. Of all the things she wanted to keep of his, it was the memory of that, the exact shade, the lightness of them. His fingers dug into her hips, leaving little bruises, which she didn't mind. Once, she had stood in front of the mirror and traced her fingers along them, connecting them together like a constellation. But here, now, she beckoned, his name a soft breath on her lips, her mouth wanting more, sliding down to his shoulder, licking at the familiarly salty flavor of him. Her tongue savored as he pushed inside of her, a groan drawn from him, tumbled out against the curve of her breast. Against her heart, she thought. _

_Their eyes held for another moment, nearly desperate before his fluttered close, breaking something between them. Only for a moment, only for a moment before his hand was skimming down her arm, catching her hand, capturing her. She moved beneath him, endlessly fluid, breathy whimpers punctuated with moans as the speed increased, his mouth discovering her breast, palm to palm squeezing, suddenly nails. Nails digging into his hip, clutching, grasping, faster now, more, more, more, then blindness._

"You're heavy," she murmured, the slight sheen of sweat on her skin cooling from the quiet breeze ruffling the curtains. Her protests were haphazard as her hand simply lay on the small of his back. Despite the number of times they'd been together, she still had a healthy admiration for his body. Broad shoulder, toned muscles, long fingers,...talented tongue. She forced herself to open her eyes before her mind wandered too far along that last train of thought.

He made some muffled noise against her shoulder, before lifting his head to look up at her, his chin resting very lightly on her cleavage.

"You weren't complaining a minute ago," he retorted, the playfulness visible in his eyes.

"I was distracted." The corners of her mouth quirked upward, watching him through half-lidded eyes. Allowing herself a foolish moment of indulgence, she ran her fingers through his hair again, the touch surprising both of them.

He followed the thread of the moment and pressed his slightly swollen lips to her chest, where he could feel the thudding of her heart resuming a calmer rhythm. His eyes closed as he basked in the intimacy of the moment. Things had fallen into a lovely place, a little nook in between the proverbial rock and a hard place, since the night of the phone call. Her admission had led to a new level of openness between them and he gorged himself on it, taking advantage of every possible bit of time to be with her. When Mellie had agreed to a speaking engagement on literacy in Ohio, he hadn't hesitated or thought things through before knocking on Olivia's door.

"What time is the campaign breakfast with the press corps tomorrow?" He asked, his fingers brushing along the line of her hipbone. She shivered slightly at the touch, her skin ticklish there, and his hand slid away, finding her own to play with her fingers.

He loved her hands. It was the first bit of her that he had known and whenever he touched them, he returned to that moment in the back of the campaign bus. The freeing rush of that moment, a bird in flight, winging over a vast ocean.

"6 am, but I need to be there by 5 to make sure that the Langston camp made the changes we asked for. I know you need a VP but I spend more of my day mediating between Cyrus and Langston staffers than most other things," she answered primly. He chuckled lightly, opening his eyes long enough to glance at the clock on the nightstand. They had three hours before she needed to leave, but he knew the drill by now. She would roll over onto her side, facing away from the door, and say nothing while he tugged up his clothes and returned to his room. It had become as familiar to him as the feel of her body against his. Slowly, reluctantly, he pushed himself up from her body and rolled over onto his side, resting there for a moment. Her eyes opened at him, questioningly, and he met her gaze, each regarding the other.

"We should get some sleep," he said, half-question, fully reluctant to leave her. Neither of them blinked for a moment as they each weighed their desires against the repercussions. He waited, feeling the weighty tension in the room, but refusing to look away.

It would be much easier to leave, but he hadn't wanted easy for some time. He wanted more of this, more of them, more progress. Being with her felt like dancing, an endless repetition of _one step forward, two steps back, one step forward, two steps back__. _And she led. So he waited, impatient but silent, his choice clearly written on his face. Her eyelids fell slightly before she rolled onto her side, breaking the eye contact between them.

He couldn't stifle the sigh of disappointment as he began to move towards the edge of the bed before he heard the click of the lamp as she turned it off. His eyes widened in surprise before he turned back towards her, seeing her lay on her side in the center of the bed. He felt joy, untempered and simple, flow through him at her unspoken agreement. He moved forward until his chest rested against the curve of her back, his hand first resting on her hip, but it wasn't enough. She was his, in that moment. Every other concern fell away for a blissful moment. Needing more, his hand slid lower, resting on her stomach, his palm against her slightly cool skin, fingers splayed. He felt her move back slightly, so they were nestled together. Puzzle pieces, he thought. The instant fitting into place.

_One step forward._

Olivia sipped on her second mug of coffee, seated at a table beside Cyrus. Not that it mattered since Cyrus had spent the entire half hour since they'd sat down glowering at James, who sat three tables away. Members of the press corps were dispersed throughout the room, some sitting with Fitz and Sally Langston at the main table, some with her and Cyrus. James was seated at a table with Britta Kagan and Billy Chambers, beside an especially handsome Langston staffer, with whom he was currently very much engaged in conversation. She was starting to see the amusement in the fact that the great Cyrus Beene, one of the most brilliant political minds she'd ever encountered, was reduced to mere mortal status in the face of relationship issues.

Even from three tables away, Olivia could read the signs of two people who were interested in one another. The shared smiles, the small brushes of fingers, the elbow nudging against the side of his arm. The grins that reached their eyes. Excusing himself with a gruff apology, Cyrus got up from the table and stomped away, leaving through the door that led outside.

Fitz raised an eyebrow from the next table over at her, but she gave him a subtle shake of her head. If he left after Cyrus, it would cause even more of a stir and she could brush it off easily. Putting her coffee down, she made eye contact with one of the press members, Claire from The Times.

"Claire," she said, her voice loud enough so the entire table could hear. "How'd you like to be the first to know about the next few campaign stops we're making?"

Almost simultaneously, all the reporters at the table turned from staring at Cyrus' empty chair to being focused on what she said next. With a smile, she divulged the location of an outdoor basketball game at the local YMCA they would be appearing at, to show Fitz in his natural element. She was behind the push to show him engaging people more directly. Not just because it made him seem more like Grant "of the people," in addition to "for the people." No, it had been the happiness on his face when she'd seen him on television during her time away, at being surrounded by kids.

If someone had told her a few months ago that she would even consider the feelings of a candidate in making a political decision, she would've scoffed it off. But she sank deeper into the quicksand with each passing day and she was becoming more accustomed to it. It felt less unnatural to allow for certain frailties. As she finished speaking, the reporters returned to talking amongst themselves. A few minutes, Cyrus returned, the strong smell of mints on his breath telling her that he'd helped himself to something stronger than the coffee. She let it slide for the moment, focusing on ensuring the rest of the breakfast went smoothly, and it did.

After putting in more than her fair share of hours at the campaign offices, frustrated by the fact that the numbers still weren't at levels she was comfortable with, she headed back to the hotel. The day had gone relatively well, with Mellie returning from her trip just in time for she and Fitz to make an appearance at the local community theater. Despite having two children of her own, she had looked slightly bewildered when someone had held up their baby for her to kiss. She immediately recovered and someone who hadn't been closely observing her for months wouldn't have noticed. But Olivia did. For Fitz, the affection came naturally and he nuzzled the baby, forcing her to look away from the tender sight. They might have made progress but even she had places she dare not go.

Yet, when he'd suggested a pre-dawn swim to her, she had said yes. Not simply because the offer, spoken in his melodious baritone voice, had brought a rush of heat to her skin. But because she understood that what was between them was a balancing act, the burden of their circumstances equal to the weight of her joy in seeing him. The lobby of the hotel was quiet and she headed for the elevator but as a very inebriated couple got in, she went for the stairs instead. She had gone up half a flight when she could overhear their voices.

"You don't get to be upset about the fact that I'm seeing someone, Cyrus!"

"Why the hell not? It's my job to keep the staff in line because I'm running a campaign, in case you didn't know!" The words came out in a hiss. "And your constant need to fuck one of my staffers is distracting and becoming a problem for me!"

"Don't pretend like your problem with this is professional! We both know that's a lie!"

"Did you not hear what I just said?" Cyrus was nearly shouting now, and Olivia moved further back into the shadows. They clearly hadn't heard her enter through the door but she didn't want to risk them hearing if she tried to leave. Clearly, she was not the only one with a secret.

"Of course I heard you, Cy! You dragged me into this stairway and then yelled at me just to make sure that I heard! But what I haven't heard is some honesty from you!" James' voice was getting louder in return, but Olivia could also hear the slight undertone of hurt.

"This is honesty! Do whatever you want on your own time but don't interrupt my workday with your petty little romance!" Cyrus shouted in response.

It was quiet for a moment, the sound of heavy breathing filling the stillness of the stairs. Finally, when James spoke, his voice was gentle.

"You don't get to be mad at me. You do not get to yell at me because I don't want to live in the shadows with you like some kind of dirty criminal. I'm not something to be ashamed of, to be hidden away," he said, each word dripping with sincerity.

"James," Cyrus responded helplessly.

"No. I don't want to spend my whole day, my whole life, longing for a handful of stolen moments. That's not a relationship. And it's not enough for me." She heard the door open upstairs, saw the sliver of light on the stairway and heard one of them leave. Focused on them, she held her breath until she heard it open again and then close. Exhaling, she rested her back against the wall, resisting the urge to simply slide down to the floor.

_What was she doing?_ The questioned boomed in her ' words struck her deep inside, in some little corner of her heart where she'd stored up all her hopes. _...l__onging for a handful of stolen moments._ The truth of the words slammed inside of her and she felt like an outsider looking in on herself. Hadn't she been doing just that, so foolishly. Convincing herself that the depth of her feelings for Fitz was somehow enough. Straightening her spine, she forced herself to pull back her emotions from spilling, reining them back under control. Taking a few soothing breaths, she made her way to the room, her hands not as still as she'd like when she opened the door. Dropping her purse on the dresser, she sat on the edge of her bed.

Here, in the darkness of her room, she could allow herself a moment of weakness. She refused to cry, but she covered her face with her hands, resentment playing through her mind. _How had she deluded herself for so long?_ she wondered bitterly. Olivia Pope didn't believe in cliche fairytales, but she believed in her gut. But she'd been so tangled up in playing relationship with Fitz that she hadn't notice the lines between hope and reality blurring.

She suddenly felt so very tired and when she got up to strip off her clothes, she ached. Not bothering with pajamas or anything, she pulled the comforter back enough so she could slide inside them. She thought about the earlier promise she had made to Fitz, to meet him at the pool once everyone had gone to sleep. But she couldn't go now. If she went, if she saw him, she'd forget the utter truth of James' words. Instead, she tugged the covers up over her head to shut out the world. It was a habit of hers from childhood, of hiding from the harshness of life. It never worked at keeping the bad out, but it made it easier to deal with them once she had gathered herself. Closing her eyes, she went to sleep.

Fitz sat at the edge of the swimming pool, waiting for her, his legs dipping the water. The anticipation of being here, of stealing a moment alone with her, had carried him through the whole day and he waited, feeling a bit like a child the night before Christmas.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

_Two steps back. _

* * *

**A/N: Dear readers, thank you all for your lovely reviews! They really are what drive me to write more, because when I first started this series, I had only planned the first two drabbles. That, and the hiatus, which is very nearly over! NEW SCANDAL this Thursday! I'm sure you're all as stoked as I am. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and I will adore you forever if you review. :)**


	9. The Other Fifty-One

"_Fitzgerald, get up!_" the voice said, pushing through the foggy haze of barely-caught sleep, insistent enough to dig through. For a moment, he was a child again, being roused early in the morning by one of the nannies or housekeepers, someone with impersonal hands and a foreign face. And he didn't want them, he wanted his mother. With her soft voice, gentle and kind. He felt a light pat against his shoulder, the physicality of it pulling him out of the recesses of his memory to now. His eyes opened and blinked up at Mellie's form, standing too close at the edge of the bed. Her arms crossed over her chest and expression instantly conveyed her irritation and he rubbed a hand blearily over his face.

"You're late. And you kept me awake half the night rolling around in the bed," she informed him, her eyes squinting in accusation for just a moment before it disappeared, the glint remaining there even as the frow in her brow smoothed out. He was too tired to play conversational chess with her and instead remained silent, sliding out from under the covers to rest on the edge of the bed with his feet planted firmly on the carpet. Looking down at his feet for a moment, he gave himself a moment to gather his scattered thoughts before lifting his head and heading off to take a shower.

**/**

Four days had passed since Olivia had stood him up for their proposed late-night swim. She hadn't responded to his text, or answered his call, or come to the door when he'd knocked. No, she had shut him out with a measured coldness. He had stood outside of her door for a moment, pressing his palm against the cold wooden, feeling momentarily weakened by his inability to simply push through to her.

The next morning, when he had arrived at the campaign offices, she had been expectedly distant, refusing to make eye contact with him unless absolutely necessary. And when she did, there was a blankness in them, as though she'd pushed down her feelings deeper inside of herself, to a place he had no access. When a big group of staffers went to lunch, he seized the moment of rest and tugged her along until they were outside, in the burgeoning warmth of sunshine, despite her hissing protest.

"You can't just drag me out of a room full of people," she had said, the low volume of her voice not making it any less formidable. Her eyes were alive now, anger ablaze in them.

"What happened last night?" He asked, ignoring her protective stance as her arms crossed over her chest, forcing a distance between them even when he stood so close.

"It was a bad idea." Her answer side-stepped the question he hadn't asked. Why did you abandon me? He watched her face as she stared directly at his shoulder, refusing to look up at him, refusing to use his name. Fitz knew about names. Names were intimate. Giving something a name brought it into existence, made it real. Wasn't that how he'd felt when she'd first called him "Fitz?" Like she had breathed life into him. Fisting his hands impotently at his sides, he controlled his irritation, his impulse to raise his voice to ensure he was heard and loosened his hands. He took another step forward, frozen, stunned when she took a step backward in response.

"Livvie," he spoke, the soft word an appeal to her, for her. She shook her head in response.

"I have work to do, Governor."

She had already taken three strides away from him when he reached out and grabbed her hand, moving until their bodies were pressed up against one another intimately, the familiarity of it making him ache. Tugging her hand out of his grasp, she pressed it to his chest intending to push him back but his hands had already moved to her waist, holding her still for a moment.

"One minute," he whispered, pleading for her to understand. He was greedy and though he wished he could demand more, receive more, he didn't care. He would take whatever of her she was willing to give.

"No," she said, her palm pressing him away from her. But the pressure building inside of his chest had nothing to with the push.

"Livvie," he repeated, his whisper carried away by the wind, to some place where longings were stored.

"No," she said, closing her eyes before wriggling out of his grasp and standing far enough away that he couldn't touch her. Too far for him to reach. He stepped forward again but she held up a hand in the air, her eyes snapping open. This time, he could see. The sadness, the regret. His helplessness reflected in her eyes. It undid him and he wanted to reach for her, to murmur soft promises until they were both soothed but he let her speak.

"We can't keep doing this, Fitz. We can't keep retreating into some fantasy world built on these minutes. Because at the end of the day, I am the campaign fixer and you are the candidate, the very married candidate who can't afford a scandal like this one. So no, no minute. I'm going to back in there now and we're going to get back to work."

She turned away from him as soon as the words were out, moving as fast as her petite legs could carry her, leaving him holding the shattered remains of the life he had so foolishly begun to imagine.

**/**

It was yet another spotlight opportunity for the Grant-Langston campaign as they had returned to Southern California, this time to help farm with agricultural program for returning veterans. The exposure was necessary to appeal to the traditional base of the Republican party that had doubts about Fitz's capacity as commander-in-chief. But to Fitz, these moments were important because he felt like he was making an actual difference. As much as he lived his life in the political sphere, he resented the cliche of politicians. The false pretenses. The carefully cultivated persona. The constant pressures to assimilate to public pressure. To him, these moments of normalcy in the middle of feeling like some circus-animal, constantly expected to perform, were what mattered. The feeling of the cool, slightly damp earth underneath his fingers. The midsummer heat warming his skin, droplets of sweat clinging to his back as he did something, something that mattered. It soothed him and brought a degree of contentment that he hadn't felt in some time.

_He looks happy_, she thought to herself as she watched him from a safe distance. She sat under a shady tree, as close to the main house of the farm so she could for the wi-fi, making sure to keep plugged in to social media and see how people were reacting to this new image of Fitz. But here, now, his face had lost the pained look it had only four days ago, the image of which was burned deep into her mind. Already, they left little scars on one another that she wasn't sure anything could erase, not even time, not even some real-life version of things working themselves out.

The image of him now tugged her back to a conversation they'd had only a week ago, laying snuggled together in bed. Her hair spread out on the pillows, slightly curling from their earlier passion, her skin still touchably warm. He lay sprawled on the bed, half on top of her, half on the sheets, his head nuzzled into her collarbone. She had loved the solid feel of him on top, despite her playful protestations. It was real, the heaviness of his body on hers. It meant they were real, if only for a stolen moment. As she lazily dragged her fingertips along his shoulder blade, she had indulged her curiosity for a moment.

"Fitz?"

"Hmm," he let out, his eyes still closed, nearly drowsing off into sleep, his entire body wonderfully loose.

"What did you want to be when you were younger?"

"Mmm," he murmured, not fully paying attention as he rubbed his lips against the edge of her shoulder. She wriggled underneath him until his mind cleared enough to focus. "What?"

"What did you want to be when you were younger?" she repeated, swirling her finger along the small of his back.

He thought, just for a moment before answering.

"Happy."

The answer was so beautifully and unapologetically honest, and so very Fitz. He was the sort of man who wouldn't pick a career or money to define success. No, he was the rare breed who judged his life based on messy emotions and genuine feeling. She pursed her lips, to hold back the words that were roiling inside of her, despite the force of them. How could she protect herself from letting him in when he said such things, when he was this kind of a man?

He lifted his head at her silence, tilting it very slightly in question.

"Wrong answer?" he asked, his voice teasing like a child's. She shook her head, not trusting her barriers to hold for the moment. Instead, she'd leaned in and pressed her lips to his forehead. His eyes softened at the affectionate gesture and he'd lay his head back down on her shoulder before adding, "Your turn."

"Well, once I stopped wanting to be Wonder Woman, I wanted to be in politics. It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do. It's just...there."

Though he didn't say anything for a moment, she knew that he understood exactly what she meant. That she couldn't imagine doing anything else with her life because nothing else would have felt as right. Because the truly incredible things felt like they'd always existed inside of her, just waiting to be accepted. Those things that settled inside of the soul with a steady insistence. They had talked for a few more minutes, sharing little tidbits of childhood, of how they'd become the people they were now, before drifting off sweetly to sleep.

She had to shake her head physically to clear out the memory, forcing herself to focus on the now. Despite the three sleepless nights she'd spent since she'd pushed Fitz away from, she felt she'd made the right decision, the only reasonable choice in a set of terrible circumstances. It was best for everyone involved to focus on the campaign, especially now that Governor Reston had overcome the challenge of his wife's supposed indiscretion. She was in the middle of typing out a set of talking points for Fitz and Mellie's next interview with reporters when Mellie's voice interrupted her.

"Oh Liv, aren't you just too hot, sitting out here in the sun with all these irritating bugs and all this dust?" She asked, looking as cool as a glass of iced tea in a short brown dress, sunglasses perched on her nose. Unlike the rest of the staffers, Mellie and her assistants had decided to stay inside the center, refusing to come out except for the official photos with Fitz.

"Oh, I don't really mind it much. It's good to be outside after being cooped up in the campaign offices every day," she answered, smiling politely up at her. Despite everything, she couldn't bring herself to hate Mellie. It was the coward's way out to vilify the wife and falling into tired cliches was something Olivia avoided.

"Well, the sunshine sure seems to be working for Fitzgerald. You know, he's just been so off these past couple of days," Mellie said, her eyes hidden but the way she said it made Olivia look up.

"Oh? I've been at the offices mostly while he and Cy met with California's finest congressmen, so I suppose I hadn't really picked up on it," she replied, her words careful, feeling suddenly wary of Mellie. Though Mellie's face gave nothing away, Olivia's gut picked up on the tension simmering inside of her.

"Anyway, your tactics seem to be working," she retorted, making everything inside of Olivia freeze for a moment, her mind going blank. Mellie let out a soft little giggle, the kind Olivia knew had been carefully practiced to show that she was harmless. No, she didn't hate Mellie, but she knew better than to trust the tender-wife image the other woman tried so very hard to cultivate. "Oh you know, the idea of getting him out into the community, showing him with people. Playing baseball. Farming. All those silly things he likes. Anyway, I think I'll just go check the photographer's timeline for the day. A sunburnt wife can't be good for the campaign coverage."

**/**

He watched as Mellie and Olivia exchanged words, polite but distant from an outsider's perspective. The contrast between them was telling. Olivia, comfortable sitting outside in a campaign t-shirt and jeans, but somehow still elegant, despite the heat and dirt and dust. Mellie, cool and out of place on a farm, too focused on the race, the endgame, to enjoy something as simple as being outside. As he continued to plant little seeds, he thought back to the same question she had been remembering a few minutes ago.

"What did you want to be when you grew up?"

He had only said, "Happy." But he had meant so much more. For him, adulthood had meant freedom, of being able to do as he pleased with his life. It was what you got in return for taxes, stress, never enough sleep and all the other irritations of having grown up. Or so he had thought as a child. But as he had matured, he began to see that the choices one made were very rarely their own. Compromises had to be made, contracts uneasily entered into for the sake of progress, and decisions weighed carefully with wants having no say in them. He had, at some point, allowed life to sweep him up in the on-ward march without any thought of what he wanted. He had run for office, he had gotten married, he had had kids, because it was what you did.

Except for her. He had chosen her. It was complicated and terribly inconvenient, but he was happy. When he hadn't been paying close enough attention, the single word had morphed into these moments with her. Tangled up in bed, sheets still warm from sex. A shared smile in the middle of the campaign headquarter. Heated debates about dirty campaign tactics. Within the short of amount of time they'd had, happiness had reshaped itself into what they brought to one another.

But he said none of this, because he knew she was skittish and he hadn't wanted to disturb the fragile peace they'd established. He could almost feel his mouth straining under the weight of all the words he hadn't said.

/

As Mellie wandered off, Olivia saw her own misstep. Though she kept up the pretense of politeness, she bristled at Mellie's use of "silly things." As though the things that mattered to Fitz were of no consequence to anyone else. The falsehood of that sentence reverberated inside her as she realized what she'd done. To someone else, it was sound campaign strategy, to make Fitz seem like he was 'salt of the earth,' especially for a Republican.

But it was too wholesome for the kind of politics both she and Cyrus expected, especially in a national campaign. No, what she'd done, in crafting the campaign strategy, was maintain Fitz's vision. She'd tried to make him happy as best as she could. The baseball games, the community outreach, the lack of dirty background. Endlessly, she had put Fitz the man ahead of Fitzgerald the candidate without thinking of the consequences of such actions. The numbers didn't lie and they were nowhere close to a comfortable level for Grant-Reston. Hadn't she thought it before. Love made fools of everyone, in the end. Closing her eyes, she realized that she could try, with some success, to deny what they had together. But to deny what was inside of her? Her love for who he was was already deep-rooted, blooming with a steady insistence.

**/**

**A/N: Dear readers, thank you again for your reviews. I take them to heart. I hope you all enjoy this chapter, even if it is a little sad. But I think it ends on a hopeful note so we'll see where it goes. xo, Gladiator love. **


	10. The Other Fifty

Mornings had always been Fitz's favorite time of day. As a child, he'd woken early, the hustle and bustle of his father's political life a never-ending performance. But he had enjoyed watching their estate slowly bloom with life, sitting at the top of the banister. His small hands holding onto the gleaming wood as he peeked through the railings, curious about the staffers, housekeepers and nannies, wondering about their stories. Mornings were full of promise. _Maybe we'll get ice cream on the way home, Fitz__._ The sort that glowed inside of him throughout the day, filling him with a delicious warmth. It was easier to believe such promises could be kept early in the day.

Now, he thought as his spine bent and straightened, sitting up at the edge of the bed, he resented mornings. Rubbing a hand over his tired face, he stared straight out the window, watching the sunshine cheerily covering the scenery. He hadn't slept since the confrontation with Olivia in the courtyard, since she'd done her best to avoid being alone with him. No, his mind believed it was a better use of his time to replay the scene over and over again, to watch as she slipped just beyond his grasp. Because living through through the pain the first time wasn't enough and he was a glutton for punishment.

Olivia had done her best to avoid Fitz the past week, spending as much time as she could with Cyrus, defending Fitz's vision in the face of opposition. It irritated her more than she wanted to admit when Mellie chimed in on the debate, as she watched Cyrus warm to her for a moment as one's ruthlessness resonated in the other. But she had refused to co-sign their agenda and they had dropped the matter of uncovering more dirt on Governor Reston, for the moment. Still, she was too much his protégé to believe that these discussions with Cyrus,would be the final say in the matter.

Her avoidance of him had become a matter of self-preservation. She knew it wouldn't last, that eventually they'd have some sort of confrontation because something this immense, this intense, couldn't be pushed aside. But she couldn't face him until she had a plan. That was what she did, it was who she was. Planning allowed for her to smooth out the messy edges of feelings, neatly gathering and stacking emotions in an organized manner until they formed a shape that was manageable. Shapes attached to easily defined words. Lovers. Friends. Partners. Acquaintances. Strangers. She needed a word for them, one simple slot to enclose them safely inside.

_What did she want?_ The question had played endlessly in her mind, on a loop until the words had dissolved and all she was left with was the question mark. Accepting her feelings for him had been the easiest part, but the rest of it? Even Olivia Pope had problems she couldn't fix. His voice drifted through the monotony of her day, her palms resting on top of the papers on her desk, wanting terribly to drop her head forward. She had never wanted something with such a breathless insistence and it never failed to shock her. The sound of his laughter rang clearly and she had to turn around, helpless to stop herself as though the tug from him was tangible.

Deep in discussion with a group of the younger staffers, his hands moved fluidly as he told them some story that seemed to amuse them all. For a wonderfully blissful moment, she wished she could capture this moment and give it to him. Though no one could accuse Fitzgerald Grant III of lacking confidence, she had seen his lack of conviction. He never spoke of it, but it was there, in the way he would defer to the decisions that she or Cyrus made, or let Mellie take the campaign in a direction she wanted to pursue. As though he wasn't quite sure if the mantle of leadership would fit him well. Or worse, if he wanted it at all.

But it was that exact quality that had drawn them all to him, his own little collection of rooks, bishops and knights. He forever their reluctant king. The leading came so naturally to him, because amidst the cynicism of politics and power, he was an optimist. In a murky and opaque world, his hopefulness threw out a lonely beam of light and followers congregated to it. This was what she wanted to give to him. As she watched the interaction, he looked up for a moment, his lips still moving, his voice steady, but his eyes caught hers and held.

She expected to see what she felt for him reflected back to herself, until she could begin to believe in the truth of them. Instead, she saw nothing. He looked at her blankly, his beautifully blue eyes horrifically silent. She didn't blink, frozen in that helpless moment, her hands turning to fists, clenching at her sides from the strain of remaining still. He blinked, and the connection was severed instantly. Her mind urged her body to move but she couldn't seem to register anything except what had passed between them. Finally, as a breath shuddered into her lungs, she turned slowly, straightening her spine as a physical reminder, before she returned to her work.

**/**

It cost him a great deal to deny her. Everything inside of him yearned towards comfort, but he forced himself to remain firm in his decision. He had to see what was there inside of her clearly, without the prejudice of his own feelings. He was intimately acquainted with what he felt, what he needed, what he wanted. But somewhere along the way, he had fed bits of his desire to her until they were both sated. The past few days of distance made him question what existed on the other side, of what was there without the glaring reflection of his own love. Though he could almost feel his bones, his blood, every inch of his skin straining for her, he forced himself to stay where he was, trapped in his silence.

He watched as she turned away, as she returned to the safer parameters of her job. In that moment, he felt the first stirrings of resentment. It was new to him in the context of Olivia, but there it was. Hadn't her saying his name in the back of the campaign bus been a promise of sorts, the slow glide of her hands from her lap to the partition between the seats a silent agreement? That whatever he felt, she felt it too. That it was as real for her as it was for him. Yet, she never missed an opportunity to push him away, to force distance between them. In the end, no one kept their promises.

**/**

She was in the middle of typing when she felt a light tap on her shoulder, looking up into the overly-eager face of Billy Chambers.

"I have your polling numbers!" he announced happily, a broad grin pasted onto his face. Though she smiled up at him politely, she couldn't help but lean back from him. Thankfully the two campaigns had had minimal interaction in recent time, allowing her to stay safely away from his relentless impulse to ask her out on a date. But whenever she saw him, her gut reacted instantly with distaste. His smiles never quite reached his eyes and she knew that he was less than faithful to Fitz as the candidate. Still, she did what was necessary for the campaign and made nice.

"Billy, you're a life-saver!" she answered, putting more enthusiasm into her voice than she felt. "But you didn't need to bring them by yourself. I know you have interns for this sort of thing."

"Well, I admit I had selfish reasons for bringing them over. I figured ninth time might be the charm in getting you to go out with me," he replied, moving another step closer to her, forcing her to step back until she felt the wood of the table against her spine. She simply side-stepped to the right, moving around the corner so it acted as a barrier between them.

"Billy, this isn't your first campaign so I'm sure you're more than aware of how horrible of an idea it is for people who are working together to pursue anything beyond the professional scope," she responded smoothly, not adding that the chances of her wanting to date him were about the same as Texas suddenly becoming a blue state.

"Does this mean you would be interested if I wasn't working for the Grant-Langston campaign? Because I have other job offers," he retorted, chortling to himself in a way that made her want to cringe. It seemed that subtlety was not a trait she could use against him and as she opened her mouth to tell him that she couldn't foresee any set of circumstances under which she would be interested in seeing him personally, a voice spoke from behind her.

"Billy Chambers, good to see you here!" Fitz said, his voice welcoming. She turned slowly, angling her body slightly towards Fitz. "Are those the polling numbers for the battleground states that no one in my camp seems to be able to find?"

"Ah, yes, they are. I thought I'd just make sure they made it into the right hands as soon as possible, so I came to deliver them myself."

"That's very proactive of you. Well, while you're here, why don't we get these numbers to Cyrus and you can fill both of us in on what they mean."

Billy looked from Olivia to Fitz for a moment before nodding politely and motioning forward.

"Lead the way." He allowed Fitz to walk ahead of him, touching his hand to Olivia's shoulder yet

**/**

_"Does this mean you would be interested if I wasn't working for the Grant-Langston campaign? ..."_ Fitz had heard the question spoken out aloud and had had to reach deep inside to resist the urge to simply drag Billy Chambers outside by the collar of his perfectly pressed polo. Instead, he had turned on his politeness with a calm that hid the expertly-controlled fury surging inside of him. What angered him perhaps most of all was that she hadn't outright refused him. No, Olivia had been effortlessly polite to him instead of telling him off in no uncertain terms.

Though Billy had eventually left his campaign offices, the anger had stayed with Fitz, the jealousy finding the rhythm of his pulse and beating along with it. He sat now in the dying sunlight, his legs crossed in front of him as he attempted to soften the piercing edges of his frustration. His frustration over their situation was beginning to take on a life of its own and the more he drank, the more he realized that no resolution would come from giving her space.

Before he was even aware he had made the decision, his legs were carrying him outside of the room, striding through the hallway until he stood in front of her door, knocking. Waiting for her to open the door again, waiting endlessly for her to let him in.

He heard her soft footsteps stop at the door, saw the light peeking out from the peephole shift slightly as she seemed to be looking through. When she finally opened the door, he didn't wait, striding inside without waiting for an invitation. He turned on her instantly, the words out before he could stop them.

"You didn't say no," he accused.

"What?" she asked, her brow furrowing in the way it always did when she was faced with something she didn't comprehend.

"To Billy. You didn't say no to Billy," he said, stalking towards her.

"You interrupted me," she replied, crossing her arms over her chest, her stance instantly defensive.

"And if I hadn't? Would you have said yes? Would you have gone out with him? Would you have let him touch you?" he demanded, moving close enough that the low hiss of his voice could be felt against her cheek. Her eyes widened in surprise for just a second, despite herself. The shock of it as his words sank in. But she was an expert at recovery and her eyes turned into angry slits.

"And if I had?" she answered, her words mimicking his without meaning to. She saw the instant his eyes changed, went dark, foreboding, with something potent.

Before she had registered its implications fully, his hands were on her body, wide palms on her hips tugging her forward until her torso pressed against him, his breath rushing out of his lungs in a hard pant. His arms moved around her waist as his mouth found hers, ravaged it mercilessly, his tongue sliding out to part her lips. As the anger drove him, his hands didn't bother to be gentle this time, frustrations making his fingers reckless as they slipped inside the thin fabric of her blouse, fingertips digging into the softness, the delicate yielding of her skin beneath his touch. They were rough, as though he was branding her, reminding her that he was the one touching. Trying to imprint himself onto the planes on her body as an alternative to getting deeper inside of her heart, of gaining her acceptance. A restless hand rushed up her body to her hair, delving carelessly into her loose curls as he heard her low moan in response. Her hands were on his shoulder, as though she'd tried to push him away, but instead clutched at his jacket, drawing him closer.

He drew her body up against his, his hand streaking down her back to her waist, tugging her forward until his hips lined up with her stomach. It never failed to arouse him how petite she was, how fragile her form felt when meeting his. His fingers spread against the soft fabric of her clothing before he pulled her up, until they were at the perfect angle for his mouth to glide down to the nook where her shoulder and neck congregated. Her legs lifted and hooked around his hips, wrapping around him like a vine, her own fingers running through his hair as he set his teeth to her skin, biting down on the delicate line of her throat. His mouth sought another taste of her, the need to rediscover it like a treasure he had lost. How could something so familiar, so much a part of him, captivate him with such devastating desperation? Everything else fell away in that moment, replaced by the tumble of need, need, _need__. _

**/**

She had meant to push him away, but suddenly, his hands were on her skin and the sudden flash of heat overwhelmed her. The flames of desire licked at her from the inside, until she felt like a forgotten ember destroyed by the intensity of the fire, a wisp of smoke curling in the air. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe past the desire clouding her lungs, her body responding instinctively, thoughtlessly in response to his. She felt his hands moving over her, tugging off clothes, barely noticing as she fought to get rid of his. Her small hands ripped at his shirt, not caring as the pull sent buttons spilling everywhere, the sound of them like seashells as they hit the dresser. His wandering mouth sent her pulse haywire and she reveled in the deliciously low growl he made when her hand slipped inside his slacks.

Suddenly she was on the bed, his fingers deftly undoing the button on her jeans, his lips on her stomach making her tremble but her fingers grabbed onto his shoulder, pulling him upward. She wanted his mouth on hers, wanted to feel his groans against her tongue, to devour them. Her fingers returned to his slacks, pushing them down when they resisted, her mouth forming a tiny 'o' caught between surprise and arousal when his hand yanked at her panties hard enough to rip them off. She didn't care, not when she felt that she only existed where he touched her, that everything inside of her converged at her collarbone where his tongue dipped into, or the sides of her breasts where his fingers were driving her mad.

The agony of denial was replaced by the ecstasy of his low breathy moan on her shoulder, of the heavy muscles of his thighs finding their way between her legs as he slid inside of her, eliciting a sharp gasp of pleasure. Her nails dug into his back, half-moon memories that he would carry with him. Each stroke made her wilder, heedless of anything except for the tumultuous refrain of want, want, _want_ playing in her mind. Here was the answer to the question she had asked herself. _This_. A single word to enclose them inside of. But the thought was swept aside as his mouth covered her, her moan muffled against his tongue, his groan dancing on hers, as he drove himself deeper inside of her, harder, until she climaxed underneath, a cry ripped from her throat.

**/**

He lay on top of her, waiting for his lungs to recover. Turning his head slightly, he looked outside, watched the wind rustle the trees in the darkness, heard the leaves shimmy to an inaudible tune. She moved the tiniest bit underneath him, making him lift his head to look up at her. He felt he should say something, but he did not know a language that could capture what he felt. When her own dark, lovely eyes opened, she looked up at him silently, the two considering one another.

Her lips parted as she whispered, "It was always no." It took him just a second, in the post-coital haze of his shattering orgasm, to understand what she meant, that her answer to Billy was always going to be no, even if he hadn't interrupted. Though he had told himself that he knew better, that he was confident in what was there between them, the answer soothed him.

"No?" He asked, indulging himself by brushing his mouth against her jawline. How simple things felt when they both stopped denying what already existed.

"No." The softly murmured word was an affirmation, compounded when she turned her head to draw him into a kiss that made him sigh. As the wind cooled his sweaty skin, he smiled and nuzzled into her shoulder. Nighttime, it seemed, had its own set of promises, and they were even more lovely.

* * *

**A/N: This chapter took longer than the rest, because I couldn't decide where to take them. But jealous-Fitz demanded to be written so here we are. Thank you, dear always, for your kind words and reviews! They forever humble me and bring me so much joy. **


	11. The Other Fourty-Nine

Olivia stood in front of the hotel bathroom mirror, letting her fingers lightly ruffle her bangs to give them more fullness before taking a couple of steps back to check her appearance. She had chosen a floor-length dress the color of crushed strawberries, the rich red contrasting her skin exactly as she wanted. It was only a campaign fundraiser dinner, she had reminded herself, twice in the past hour. But she cared, and that made all the difference. There had been no resolution reached, no compromise made, but the impasse they were in had a lovely intimacy to it. Acceptance had made her more brave, taking time during her lunch break to go buy the dress.

When she had touched her fingers to the soft fabric of it, she had, just for a moment, imagined his mouth finding the curve of her shoulder blade, the low back dipping just above the small of her back. The shiver which this single image sent through her had been enough to make her buy it before she could change her mind. Another few minutes and she knew her mind would find a dozen arguments to deny what was in her gut. She had, after all, made a career of harnessing the power of words, and she was more than willing to use it on herself. Taking one final glance in the mirror as she began to feel the tiniest fluttering of nerves in her stomach, she stroked a hand over the dress to make sure it fell smoothly and grabbed her purse on the way out the door.

**/**

Fitzgerald Grant breathed deeply, inhaling until he felt his lungs fill with the cool, cleansing night air. There was a slight chill to it that pleased him, the tuxedo jacket open at the front as he collected his thoughts, his hands in his pockets.

_He had left the middle of a campaign fundraiser held in his honor, his cell vibrating for the third time in an hour, having ignored it the first time around. Finally, this time, he had politely excused himself to answer it, swiftly moving through the crowds to get outside._

_"__Hello," he answered, his spine straightening even though he was on the phone and no one would know if he slouched._

_"__Hello to whom, Fitzgerald?" his father's voice barked at him. Clenching the hand that wasn't holding the phone, he closed his eyes and forced himself to deal with the situation._

_"__Hello, sir," he gritted out. The very sound of his voice set his teeth on edge, but the quicker he got through this phone call, the quicker he could return to the party. To Olivia. He had barely seen her during the day, frustrated when she hadn't spent her brief lunch break with him. But he had promised himself a private moment for them, in this beautiful place with the stars winking at them and her head a little dizzy from too much wine, and he kept that in mind as he focused on the call._

_"__Now, Fitzgerald, what's happening with the campaign? Why am I not seeing more dirt on Reston than I can use my shovel to clean up? What kind of idiot do you have running this campaign? What's Cyrus doing over there in the meantime?" Fitz could feel his nails digging into the flesh of his palm but it was the better alternative to spewing the hate violently swirling inside of him, which would only prolong the misery. Still, when he spoke, his tone was stern and didn't bother to hide much of his anger._

_"__Cyrus is doing what he's paid to do, which is to get me elected president. He's here to guide me. Which isn't something anyone asked you to do," he said, the familiar knot beginning to tangle in his stomach as soon as the words had left his mouth._

_"__Fitzgerald." The single word dripped with disdain, but more, it held the tight reins of a lifetime of control. Fitz instantly felt instantly frozen, tugged backward into a past he had worked so hard to escape. Such a simple noise had such unmitigated power._

_"__I'm in the middle of a fundraiser. And I know how much you hate rudeness, so I should get back. Did you have a reason for calling me?"_

_"__Other than telling you that this sissy-pants campaign you're running is destroying whatever inkling of a shot you had at being somebody? The executor of your mother's will wants you to come by the estate and inventory everything you want to keep," Big Jerry told him. The twin stabs of resentment and grief struck him simultaneously and he pressed a hand to his stomach because it wounded so deeply._

_"__I don't care. Keep whatever you want, and ship to the rest to the ranch in Santa Barbara. The housekeepers will make room." His voice was weary, feeling the strain of keeping up the pretenses for far too long._

_"__That's done then. Call me again when you're ready to win the election." Fitz pressed the "end" button as soon as the words were out and had to keep from giving in to his impulses and throwing his phone across the wide, open space._

Wandering a little further, he could see the the shimmer of moonlight that indicated water and he headed toward it. Water had always soothed him when he was younger, the feeling of being forever weightless as he swam through it. Now, he just needed a minute. One minute. Finding granite steps leading down to the water, he brushed a hand over them, making sure they weren't dirty before sitting down. His legs bent at the knees and his elbows rested on them for a moment as his hands covered his face.

One phone call and suddenly, everything came apart at the seams. The stitches ripping apart inside of him, the darkness of past sorrows spilling out from where he'd tried to hide them, until he felt himself drowning in them. He thought of his childhood now as a meditation on the excesses of power. But as a child? _Alone_. He had never lacked friends or possessions. Still, being an only child in a normal family had its moments of difficulty. But being an only child in the political sphere, living in that fishbowl with an adulterous father and a mother who accepted his every transgression? It was almost comical how far from charmed his upbringing had been. He wanted so much more for his own kids and he had tried his best to protect them, to shelter them from the harsh glare of public life. He comforted himself with the thought that at least Jerry and Karen had one another.

He inhaled and held the breath inside of his lungs for a moment, leaning his head back slightly before exhaling slowly. Patting his hands on his slacks, he stood again, rubbing a hand over his face. He had a performance to give to these people who had spent thousands of dollars on coming to see him, and he refused to let them down. As he had been let down. Dutifully, he gathered the wreckage of his memories and slid them back into a safer place where all the hurts of living collected. Turning again, he walked towards the bright lights of the mansion the fundraiser was being hosted in, but felt no heat, no warmth, from them.

**/**

She was nursing a glass of wine, had been sipping from it for the past ten minutes she'd been there, scanning the room for the sight of his curls over the tops of everyone else's heads. Finally, at the sight of Billy breaking away from Sally and heading directly towards her, she had left her wine glass on the table and moved in the opposite direction. Thankfully, she saw Cyrus in that direction, made eye contact right before he grabbed two drinks from a passing tray, holding out one for her in offering. Shrugging a shoulder, she took a sip before pulling a face.

"Why am I drinking a whiskey sour?" she asked, looking down at it with a half-frown.

"Because it's the juice of Republicans," he answered before taking a big gulp of it. His eyes watched the room, surely taking note of who was mingling with whom and how he could use it to his advantage. The shrewd man missed nothing, except for his personal life.

"Where is he?" she wondered aloud, looking around the room again before looking at Cy again.

"He left a little bit ago. Big Jerry's been hounding him today." The answer made her raise her eyebrow before she looked for the door.

"I'll go make sure everything's alright." Cyrus nodded in response, leaving her to head outside, into the mild night. Her heels clattered on the brick path as she walked, wondering which way he had headed when she saw him directly heading. He was staring at the ground but the sound of her shoes made him look up and his hands fell out of his pockets. Even in the dark, she could tell something was off and headed towards him with purpose. With only a few inches of space between them, she stopped and looked up at him, ever the gentleman in his perfectly-fitted tuxedo.

"Fitz," she said, curiosity plain on her face. His eyes moved from the top of her head, down over her bare shoulders, lower, lower, lower, until meeting hers again, settling. Wordlessly, he reached forward and put his hands on her hips, tugging her forward until she had to catch herself with a palm on his chest.

"Fitz, we're in public," she said, nearly wriggling to get out of his grasp. His head dipped down to meet hers, searching for her mouth blindly, desperately, but not in the familiar way that she had expected. Easing herself back, she turned to glance around, making sure that no one had seen.

She knew she should give him the drink to take off the edge and deliver the candidate back to the fundraiser, as her job required. But the gloom peeking through his eyes at her, barely there but visible to someone who knew where to look, called to her, and with a glance around, she took his hand. Guiding him now, she moved towards a cluster of wide trees that she knew would block them from anyone else. Putting the glass near the tree trunk, she turned back to face him.

Standing close enough to watch his face, she brushed the pad of her thumb against his knuckles.

"What?" she asked, unsure of how to react to a despondent Fitz. It was rare for him to be so troubled about something outside of them. Momentarily childish, he shrugged a shoulder upward before leaning in again, kissing the sensitive spot at the base of her throat. She was wise to the ways of his avoidance and took another step backward, but kept his hand in hers, squinting at him now.

"Use your words," she said, the tone meant to tease him out of his mood. He let go of her hand and moved towards the drink, but she blocked his path easily, standing between him and the tree.

"This has nothing to do with the job," he said, his voice louder now. She knew that the surprise of his words was clearly visible on her face, but she covered it instantly, knowing that letting her hurt show would only spur him on to take the easy way out. And if she wasn't taking it by refusing to be with him, then it wasn't an option for him either.

"That's wrong on both of the levels you meant it on, but we'll gloss over that because I'm more interested in what's bothering you," she replied, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared fiercely up at him. The gesture told him that she was annoyed with him and the distance made him want to cling to her even more fiercely. The dance, endlessly dancing. Though he wished he could either shrug or drink it off, he forced himself to look at her before responding.

"My father called earlier to discuss the specifics of my mother's will," he said, the answer short and terse but she had made a habit of parsing his words for subtext. They both settled in the unsaid. Without knowing it when things had started between them, they had discovered many similarities. Among these an affinity for dry red wine, autumn weather and Abraham Lincoln's writing.

They were also reluctant members of an exclusive club: the Dead Mothers Society. It had been part of why he'd understood the pain when she'd shared her tragedy with him. Despite the numerous differences in their upbringing, they shared these little bits of one another that brought about a poignant empathy.

Both only children.

Such lonely children.

**/**

His answer hung in the air before she stepped towards him allay his concerns, her fingertips barely more than a whisper against his skin as she touched his cheek. His hands moved to her waist, before sliding around to indulge his own fingers as they rested on the bare skin of her back. Without any pressure from him, she moved closer until her cheek rested against the cool fabric of his jacket, her arms loose as they wound around his waist. The mere weight of her body against him soothed. With a sigh, he dropped his cheek on top of her hair and let himself float on the temporary calm.

Tilting his head, he rubbed his mouth against her temple, eyes still closed before he kissed the top curve of her ear, lower now, blindly feeling with his lips as he discovered her cheekbone. They met in a kiss, her hands flat on his back as she let herself be pulled along into the moment, riding on his impulses. He teased, skimming his lips against hers in temptation, not sinking into anything deeper. When he pulled back, he had the pleasure of feeling her tremble in his arms. She made some tiny little noise and the atmosphere changed, blood thickening with desire.

He carefully guided her back towards the nearest tree, blocked from the mansion completely by an entire row of trees and eased her up against the bark. Her eyes fluttered open, but he covered her mouth with his again, tracing her heavy bottom lip with the tip of his tongue until he garnered a tiny whimper. Swiftly stripping off his jacket, he draped it over her shoulders before pressing her back up against the tree completely. She made some quiet noise of protest but his lips were already dotting kisses down the side of her arm as his busy hands slipped lower to raise the hem of the dress.

"Fitz, no, we're outside!" She put her hands on his shoulder to push him back but he nipped at her earlobe before whispering in response.

"No, we're in a fantasy land where we can see out but no one can see in." The edge of the dress bunched around her hips, his tongue licking around the shell of her ear, his nails scraping against the inside of her thighs. The edge of pain that they both delighted in. Fingertips now as they slid upward to the juncture of her thighs, a single stroke through the swatch of lace. He took her mouth again, not so he could quiet her whimper but so he could muffle his own desperate groan when his fingers dipped inside, feeling her wetness on his fingers.

Using two fingers, he found her bundle of nerves and stroked in a circle, no beginning, no end. She let out another little noise, caught somewhere between a moan and a whimper, and it rushed through him, tantalizing. Her hands reached out, moving down his waist to the front of his slacks but he grabbed them with the hand not inside of her panties, and drew them upward, over her head. Her entire body bowed up, a sinuous exclamation mark as she whimpered.

He understood perfectly, in that moment of her vulnerability, the allure of power. He had absolute control and it staggered him. Yet, he felt equally captivated by her gasp when he slid a single finger inside of her. Her head fell back, her neck asking for a kiss which he obliged. She moved against him, arching her hips forward in a move that said, _Take more. Give more. More. _It was somehow everything and never enough. He released her hands just for a moment, long enough to slide the strap of her dress down, her breast freed for an instant before his mouth moved around it. Tongue on nipple earned him a shudder and teeth resulted in a strangled sob.

Another finger and he felt the tremors intimately, the need for her release spurring him on. Deeper now, slow but steady, and his thumb moved to greet her clit as he felt her getting closer, her skin glistening in a single shard of moonlight. He felt her orgasm approaching, had memorized the signs by now and he enveloped her mouth as she was borne away on the waves of her climax. He held her up as the shivers stopped, her body lax between him and the tree.

When she could bring herself to lift her head and look up at him, he felt lighter. She slowly slid the strap of her dress back up, her eyes still half-lidded, darker than usual.

"Better?" she asked, her voice barely more than a purr.

"Much," he replied, letting her hem fall back to the ground before cupping her chin in his hand and kissing her affectionately.

"We really need to get back," she murmured as soon as the kiss ended and he nodded in compliance. Being with her had eased his burden, and the memory of this moment between them acted as a balm. He took her hand again, held it until they left their cozy haven behind the trees. Though she let go of his hand and walked ahead of him, she stopped at the door, just for a second, to smile at him over her shoulder. The knowing passed between them.

Both only children.

But a little less lonely.

.

* * *

**A/N: This chapter was brought to you by a late-night re-watching 2x11, which is my favorite episode outside of the "The Trail." Those two are tied for me in terms of Olitz feels. Plus, sexy-wood-chopping is a sight to behold! **

**As always, dear readers, reviews make my heart sing and give me the courage to put pen to...umm, to put fingers to keyboard. Thank you for sticking around on this journey! **


	12. The Other Forty-Eight

Olivia did not share the bed well. She would end up sprawled out at some point in the night.

She didn't snore, but every now and then, when she was having a particularly vivid dream, she would wrinkle her forehead and let out a disgruntled little noise.

When she got into bed, she would slip deep underneath the covers and slide her legs out straight forward, to the very edge before wiggling her toes forward so that the ends slid underneath her heels, effectively tucking them in.

She was less likely to roll away in the middle of the night if they fell asleep with her nestled into his chest. Which explained why Fitz had woken up alone, with only a corner end of the soft, taupe-colored sheets covering his chest. His eyes opened slowly and looked over at her form in the darkness of the room. She lay on her stomach, her cheek resting against the cool fabric of the pillow, her arm haphazardly thrown over her head. He embraced the stillness of the moment, watching silently as the curve of her side moved rhythmically from her breathing. These were the things he had come to know about her.

He could count on a single hand the number of times he had been afforded the pleasure of staying with her through the night. They had both become accustomed to tugging on recently-rumpled clothing, pulling it up over skin still warm from love-making. But since he had awoken abruptly, he had watched her and begun to absorb the little details that made up Olivia Pope. Each new realization, each new fact about her was like a treasure, hallowed by the knowledge that she didn't give of herself easily. In another life, he imagined she could've been a talented gambler. But here, asleep, she had no poker face and she looked...fragile, peaceful.

Indulging himself, he ran the tips of his fingers in an uninterrupted line down her spine, the sheet sliding down over her bare skin to bunch at her hips. Sliding closer, he kissed along the contour of her ribcage, using the slightest edge of tongue against her skin. She stirred slightly but did not wake. With a reluctant sigh, he moved back to his side of the bed.

He didn't want to wake her, didn't want to see the wariness return to her eyes as she hid her vulnerability again and pretended that it didn't hurt her to watch him leave yet again. He knew better. He was slowly learning the language of her silences. Slipping quietly from the bed, he rummaged around in the dark for his discarded clothing, dressing near the bed as he continued to watch her sleep.

Finally, as his fingers buttoned his shirt, he walked to the other side of the bed, kneeling beside her sleeping form, storing the image of the exact angle of her cheekbone under this exact angle of moonlight in his mind. With a final kiss against her temple, an affectionate brush of his palm over her hair, he slipped from the room and stood, just for a second, in the hallway. He resented the set of circumstances that led to him having to tip-toe towards an empty bed, each step carrying him further away from what he wanted. He refused to feel guilty for what was between, as though it was some shameful secret to be hidden away behind locked doors in the cover of night. He wanted mornings for them, sunlight, air making her hair dance. Freedom.

Rifling through his pocket to find his keycard, he slid it through the card reader and entered the darkness of his own room, feeling the difference instantly. The emptiness of the neatly-made bed seemed to mock him and he tossed his keycard onto them in frustration, stripping off his clothes before searching for an appropriately casual outfit for the day's excursions in Des Moines. As he neatly lay his clothes out on the bed, he felt a burst of anger, sudden and swift inside of him.

He didn't want to do this anymore. Though his frustration with his political life had always been there, needling him at inconvenient moments, it surged through everything else now to make its presence known. His whole life was a tribute to the fear of asking what he wanted. But here it was, demanding an answer from him. When asked before, he'd said, "happy," because the honest answer would've frightened her. But he had known from the first moment of seeing her that it was her. He couldn't seem to see anything beyond her, anything outside of what there was between them. It simultaneously exhilarated and terrified him that his own happiness depended on someone else.

But it was real. And that made the difference. He clung to the promise of more to come, held it inside of him like an ember as he went about the mundane rituals of morning.

**/**

Though she woke only a few minutes after he did, her body only felt the absence of him. As her eyes opened slowly, she realized that she had moved into the middle of the bed, her arms and legs thrown out wide to cover as much of the space as she could. As though she could make up for the lack of his form beside hers. Shaking her head at herself, she braced herself on her palms, preparing to slide out of the bed and get on with the rest of the day.

But she stopped herself, giving her steely resolve a brief reprieve as she slid toward his pillow by the headboard. Closing her eyes again, she lay her cheek against the giving softness as she recalled the most recent picture of him she's stored in her mind. His eyes closed as he began to drift off into sleep. His mouth ever-so-slightly open, one hand half-curled under his chin, the other possessively wrapped around her. She couldn't stop herself from inhaling deeply, catching the scent of the hotel soap mixed with something that she just recognized as him. Familiar, warm, essential.

She felt as though her emotions were gathering force inside herself, molding little moments into new shapes until they were enough for a lifetime. Her natural inclination was toward reluctance, toward retreat, but each step forward made the next easier, each transgression washing away the guilt. As she nestled deeper into the spot on the bed where his body had been only a few hours ago, blissfully close to her own, she wondered about the person she had become since the first one minute.

That had been the flame touching the end of the fuse, the slow burn moving down the line until it exploded in the back of a campaign bus, the bits of debris scattering everywhere as they made love for the first time in yet another hotel room. They made love like transients, neither coming nor going, caught inside of sheets that belonged to neither of them. Could something so temporary be real?

She wanted it to be, and when she spoke to him through their shared breaths, she could convince herself to believe. But she wouldn't have been who she was if she didn't have the ability to zoom out, to broaden the scope of the picture and consider the world that existed outside of their protective bubble. _Nothing gold can stay, _she reminded herself, lifting her head and rolling out of bed, away from the stolen memory of them. Slipping on the robe hanging on the hook beside the closet, she moved to the bathroom, standing before the mirror.

Her reflection blinked back at her, same jawline, same thick lashes, same slope of neck. Everything looked as it had before even when nothing felt familiar. Though she was becoming slowly accustomed to his presence in her life, she saw the future for them as two fixed points: stagnation or dissolution. She had lived life too fully to believe that another option existed, some foolish idea of a neat and tidy ending, packaged with a bow on top. Closing her eyes, she braced herself with her palms on the cold counter, dropping her head as though the burden of her worries was a physical weight. She wanted to crumple under the pressure, but it would change nothing, so she squared her shoulder. Like a boxer battling her own insecurities, fighting beyond her weight class.

Lifting her head, she met herself in the mirror, watched as the person she had been before waged war with the person she was now, saw the clash of desires and frailties, heard the discovery of the chinks in her armor. But neither side came out the victor and she let the conflict stew inside of herself, knowing that the best answer, the right one, would find its way to her.

Just as he had.

**/**

"What time do they fly in?" Fitz asked Cyrus, relishing the intense heat of the coffee as he took a deep gulp. He was perched on the edge of Cyrus' desk, watching as the other man typed a confirmation email for yet another press engagement that they'd booked.

"11 am, and they'll be brought here by 11:30. They're expecting us to be at the school by noon because the first lunch break starts at 12:15," he answered without looking up.

"Who all's going?"

"The school said we could have 10 people, so you four, plus two security, plus the cameraman and his assistant, that's eight. Plus Gary the tech guy and me. That's 10." Cyrus looked up at him, his brow quirking for just a second before he went back to dealing with emails. Fitz said nothing as he took another sip the intensely dark liquid, though he wished he could find a logical reason for why he wanted Olivia to come with them.

While on the campaign trail, it was extremely rare for him to get the opportunity to spend time with his children. When they weren't in boarding school, they spent most of their days with Mellie's parents, sheltered from the limelight as much as possible. But now that they were here, he wanted to see them with Olivia. It mattered to him that they adored her, that they felt a sense of ease with her. He was afraid to follow that thread too far, to wonder aloud why it dogged him, but he accepted that it was. It soothed something inside him to see them together.

With one last drink of his coffee, he left the mug on his desk and headed off to speak to the head of his security about the details of the lunchtime press coverage.

**/**

Olivia took a bite of her salad as she sat behind her desk, the news muted as she waited for them to air the coverage of the Grant family outreach. It was a good idea, politically speaking. Having survived the rumors of Mellie's supposed infidelity,the irony of which was never lost on her, she and Cyrus had agreed that this outing would further solidify Fitz's wholesome image. The highest polling numbers they'd received in recent times had been immediately following his outreach with the veterans in California. The image of him getting his hands dirty had resonated widely, even among California's particular brand of liberals.

She caught a glimpse of a playground and turned the sound on, leaning forward as the other staffers quieted down to watch. They showed short clips of him interacting with some of the children at the school as Mellie and his children mingled with others in the background. The purpose of their visit had been to discuss a student-led program that had created a compost pile to deal with the problems of sustainability and waste. Since the environment wasn't particularly high on their list of priorities, Olivia and Cyrus had agreed that it was the perfect cause to appeal to the moderates and undecided voters.

There was a clip of Fitz talking to the teacher who had put the students' plan into effect, another showing the Grant children filling up the containers where the compost was stored until it was ready to be used. Mellie giggled in the background, smiling sweetly at the camera even though Olivia saw her attempts to hide her boredom. She simply wasn't the sort of person who would get into the spirit of dirtying her manicure. Olivia supposed she couldn't resent her too much for it considering that she wasn't especially a fan of outdoor adventures.

But she would've, for him.

Taking another bite of her salad to draw herself out of her thoughts, she glanced back up at the screen, watching as they shifted back to the studio. The reporters, as expected, lauded Fitz for his efforts at reaching out to the community, before the younger female reporter changed the subject.

"I think it's great to see the Grant kids out on the trail, managing to spend some time with their father during this busy time for all of them. They seem to be recovering from the rumors about Mellie Grant's supposed infidelity," the chirpy blonde said before turning to her co-anchor.

The more mature male nodded in agreement, adding, "As tough as it must've been, I imagine it was a good crash-course on raising children in the public eye. Having a father who's a governor is a much different ballgame than having a father who's president."

"Absolutely! These sort of things always hurt the children worst of all," the female anchor said, nodding vehemently in agreement.

Out of the corner, she heard one of the interns scoff at the reporter before commenting, "These sorts of things meaning your thinly-veiled gossiping? Does she think she gets paid for having disproportionately large breasts?" The group burst out into laughter and Olivia had to smile at them in response when the humorous intern looked her way, but she couldn't throw herself into the laughter. Switching to another news channel, she grabbed her salad, drink and headed outside to a secluded area with a bench.

Location had never made a difference for her before, but now, she had come to need sunshine and fresh air. It was a habit of his she had come to adapt. Every now and then, no matter how busy the day was on the trail, he would drag her outside to talk, to kiss her in that perfect way that was demanding and gentle, to share the day together as though they would have many more just like these.

He loved being outdoors.

For a man who was effortlessly charming and extremely affable, he was unexpectedly cranky before he had had his first cup of coffee. Black, unless he was angry about something. Then, he would add sugar and pout thoughtfully while he stirred.

He carried a little notebook with him at all times. Despite being well-versed in the ways of modern technology, there were still some things that he would take the care to write. He had once told her that it was because when you put pen to paper, it was permanent. You couldn't just hit the backspace button and do it all over again. So you had to question whether the idea was good enough to last forever.

These were the things she had come to know about him.

She added another to the list: he cared more about being a good father, a good person, than being a good politician. Guilt, previously coiled into a dark corner of her gut, slowly, sinuously expanded until it reached its full size. For a blissful second, she thought she had it under control but it sprang forth and sank its fangs into her, spreading its poison through her mind until she could imagine the wreckage of their dalliance.

She had been so blinded by her own sorrows, concerned with grasping at every momentary joy with him, that she had forgotten all other considerations. That in the end, it would not be only she who would pay the price for their affair. It would be Karen, and Jerry. It would be Fitz. Once he was elected, they would be under constant scrutiny, every move captured, discussed, replayed on an endlessly unforgiving loop. Being president meant that the Grants would live their lives like an exhibit in the Museum of the American Political System.

She had been prepared, she had braced herself for her own tragedy. But foolishly, hopelessly, she couldn't bear the idea of his pain. It tormented her with a strength she didn't have appropriate defenses for.

Stagnation or dissolution?

She looked down at her hands, feeling naive as she wished for his presence, wished that she could soothe herself with the strength of his immense hands grasping at hers. But she knew she couldn't let her feelings for him cloud the wisdom of the right choice. She knew that things had to end between them after the election. _What if?_ she wondered for just a second. _What if he didn't win? What if he went back to California? What if they..._ She closed her hands, turned them to fists, strengthened them with her resolve. She didn't fail. When someone gave her a task, she handled it. There were no 'ifs' in Olivia Pope's world.

_When_ she succeeded in doing the job she had been brought in to do, they would no longer exist within a vacuum. _When_ he was in the White House, _when_ he was installed as the leader of the United States of America, things would be different. She would stop this madness after the election, after she had helped him achieve his dream, eventually, eventually. Even as the word appeased her, she could almost hear the seconds whooshing past her, the minutes collecting speed as they threatened to run her down. The cruel sound of a clock marking the time, tick tick tick tick tick, whispering to her the truth that she wanted to deny:

_When_ he won the election, she would lose him.

* * *

**A/N: Hi hi hi! I'm sorry for the wait, I just have a habit of not writing anything unless I'm struck by an idea! But just know that your reviews, dear readers, motivated and pushed me to live up to them. I hope I do them justice. Thank you, as always, for coming along on the adventures of my imagination! **


	13. The Other Forty-Seven

The rain sluiced down the windows, clingy droplets making the outside world opaque from inside the campaign offices. The weather, combined with the earliness of the hour, brought the outside gloom indoors as Olivia slipped off her khaki trench and hung it on the hook near the door. This morning, she preferred the quiet of it, needed the silence to slow down the whirl of thoughts inside of her mind. Though she was woken alone in her hotel bed, she had seen flashes of him in slumber, his body moving over hers, kissing a trail down along her ribs, lower and lower. Reality mixed with the gauzy edge of dreaming.

She had awoken tangled up in the memories of them, surrounded by the resounding absence that greeted her. It might have been that she had created it all in her mind, if not for the tiny bruises on either side of her hips. Those were worth a dozen morning of cold sheets. But she was crowded by him, the familiar fragrance of his aftershave on the sheets tormenting her.

So she had left, come here to another place filled with Fitz. It seemed her whole life had shifted to make room for him. But this was easier. Fitz the Candidate could be handled. Those were feelings she could keep from spilling out of her carefully crafted boundaries. She only bothered to turn on half the lights before she moved to her desk, climbing into her swivel chair with her limber legs curled up underneath her, wrapping both hands around her paper coffee cup. She hadn't yet managed to gather enough courage to tell him that she had given them an end date, put an expiration date on them.

Despite the time that had passed, she still shied away from calling it a relationship. Her mind constantly dangled between wanting them to be real and fearing the ramifications of stepping in with both feet. She knew personally the devastation that a failed relationship could wreak upon a woman who loved a man too much. After her mother's death, her father had eventually gotten remarried to a lovely woman. The simple, domestic, marrying-kind of woman. The cookies-in-the-afternoon, pot-roasts on Sunday, a well-manicured-garden sort of woman. And she had watched, from behind the island of their spacious kitchen, as her step-mother devoted her entire life to seeking out the love of a man who wasn't capable of such emotion. She remembered the stoic stance of her father's form, broad shoulders and wide palms, but these were not the kind of memories one remembered with nostalgia. Always the image of his back.

This was her childhood, an early start of blooming amidst the wreckage of failed hopes and the crumbled glass of another's shattered dreams. She had been a little taller, but not much, when she had seen her father's back for the last time, had silently focused on counting the wrinkles in his dark gray suit so she wouldn't cry, as he walked away from them, _from her. As he abandoned her_. It had been a moment of firsts for her. The first time someone had willingly left her behind. The first time her family had chosen to leave her. The first time she had failed to fix an impossible situation.

She had been raised by a shadow of a woman, a barely-there wisp of longing who spoke quietly and only when required. There had still been cookies and the garden stayed neat, but every Sunday, her step-mother had set an extra plate at the table, an entire place setting arranged neatly. Olivia had eventually grown to resent the visible reminder of absence, the unmarred whiteness of the china mocking her. There were harder ways to grow up, she knew, unmentionable cruelties that extended far beyond her little rich girl problems. She had embraced the loneliness, used her scholastic achievements as a balm, swam her frustrations out. She had believed that every success would counterbalance the hurt of the failures, but eventually, she had learned that life never balanced itself out. Nothing wiped clean the past. Scar tissue always remained.

Taking another sip of coffee, she heard the sound of the door opening and the harshness of bright lights as they were all turned on. Looking up, she watched as Cyrus entered the room, surprise clearly visible on his face as he saw her.

"Oh, Liv, I thought I'd be the first one in the office this morning," he said, swiftly moving through the room toward his desk, sliding off his jacket and dropping it on top of his desk.

"No, I just, uh...wanted to look at the latest polling data on moderates and undecided voters," she said, finding the folder of information she'd barely glanced at the night before, distracted by the promise of an entire free hour with Fitz.

"I can't look at something that grim this early in the morning," Cyrus told her, dropping into his chair and resting on his forearms on the chair, leaning back as he looked up at the ceiling. She knew that look well by now, the tiredness clearly visible on her mentor's face. When he inhaled, and then exhaled audibly, she could feel the argument they were about to have.

"Cyrus, no," she said, shaking her head as she unfurled her legs and sat up in her chair, her back straight and her form composed, looking directly at him now. "We can't keep going in a circle when it comes to campaign strategy."

"Liv, Fitz is our guy. And our guy's in trouble. So when the guy, our guy, is in trouble, we fix it. We make compromises, we wheel-and-deal, we do what needs to be done," he answered, meeting her gaze, his voice low. She couldn't think about the shared possessiveness of his words, of how much they resonated within her, right now. The only thing that mattered was that she could protect his goals, protect him.

"Don't you think I know that?," she replied impassioned, her previously level voice growing louder as she leaned forward in her seat. "And the guy, our guy, wants us to play this game above board. But somehow, we keep having this argument on a weekly basis."

"We keep having it because we're not winning! Because that's the job! That's why I brought you here in the first place!" he shouted now, moving out of his seat now, his hands in a flurry of movement as he threw them up in the air in exasperation. "We're walking around with our hands tied behind our backs! We're surgeons who got told to operate with kid-friendly scissors! We have a handicap that is costing us thousands of votes every single minute."

Cyrus accentuated his words by slapping his hands onto his desk, the stapler and pen holder both making a noise from the force of his frustration. Her eyes went wide as she watched him looking down at his hands, as though he was also surprised by the strength of his indignation.

"He's not a handicap, he's the guy. He's our guy," she answered, her voice quieting again, attempting to calm him, to keep her own temper in check because she knew it would solve nothing when they argued. She moved to him, standing at the edge of his desk, and placing her hand gently on his shoulder. Cyrus looked up at her, his open hands slowly lifting from the desk and falling to his sides.

"We're not here to write a fairytale tribute to the American dream, Liv," he said, a harsh whisper, whistling out of his teeth.

"Do you really think that this country was built on rainbows and cotton candy and clean campaigns? Do you think being a sausage maker makes me any less of a patriot? I love this country, this country."

He pointed down at the ground to emphasize his point, meeting her eyes so she could see the conviction in them, the truth of his words visible in them, before continuing.

"But I don't love with rose-colored glasses on, I don't love like some naive child who believes that good naturally overcomes evil. Politics doesn't happen, it's made. I'm a true patriot, who's aware that sacrifices have to be made, who embraces the dark side of politics in addition to the goodness. That's real, and that's my service."

Olivia eyes moved over the man's face, the furrow in his brow, the tightness of his mouth making underlining his devotion to the words, making them powerful. His body seemed to almost tremble under the strength of his dogma. She could see the struggle inside of him, but she refused to be swayed.

"You serve at the pleasure of the future president," she responded, her words even, her will intact. "We're not doing this. We have eight weeks until the election. We have time to change this."

The only response she got from him was a dismissive snort but the conversation ended as two more members of their staff entered the room, greeting them with cheerful, hopeful faces. Olivia smiled in response, giving Cyrus a single shake of her head before she returned to her desk to take stock of the damaging polling numbers.

**/**

Her body was turned toward the door, watching as the campaign staff slowly filtered out the room, the room feeling spacious again. Large enough to contain her worries. She had spent much of the day making a list of prominent supporters that would bring enthusiasm back to the base about their candidate. Fitz was far from an ideal Republican, but he was a second-generation politician and that gave them a great deal of capital within his party. With a weary sigh, she stood up and slowly raised her arms, turning her face toward the windows. Reaching up in the air, her arms went higher and higher until her back arched enough for her to feel the stretch and feel the soft crack that made her exhale in comfort.

"Long day?" a familiar baritone asked her as she caught her breath, turning around to face Fitz. He stood at the door, a hip crooked against the frame, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a soft sweater that he must have changed into when he left earlier in the evening.

"The perils of campaigning," she murmured as she dropped her hands slowly to her sides, turning toward the door, moving forward so that she could lean back against the front of her desk. He stepped into the room, letting the door close with an audible thud. His tall frame filled the room almost instantly, making it feel less spacious and empty than it had a moment ago. She watched as he locked the door behind him and turned down the lights so that only half of them remained, filling the room with a warmth rather than brightness. His strides were long as he came toward her, standing directly in front of her, close enough to touch.

**/**

He had gone back to the hotel an hour ago, taking some much-needed time to catch up with his kids. Everything felt more simple when he heard Karen whine about the cliques at school or Jerry shyly tell him about a girl that he was too afraid to ask to the school dance. They centered him, filled him with a confidence that good things, wonderful things, came from situations that felt hopeless. He had heard Mellie telling him something in the background, and he felt the stark contrast instantly. The threat of a future of nothing more than this loomed over him, making him feel trapped and weak.

Mumbling some excuse about needing something from the offices, he went to the headquarters, seeking out the calmness, the serenity of being with her again. It was the centering, the feeling of rightness when they were together. There were no pretenses, the veil drawn back on who he was. There were moments when he felt that she didn't understand, didn't see what hid under the layers that they had slowly begun to peel back. But then she would meet his gaze, turn her rich brown eyes up at him, and he knew. She knew. Nothing remained unsaid in their brimming silence. He wanted that understanding now, needed to feel it again, to see for himself that it was still there.

The day had been too full to make room for a moment of privacy for the two of them, but he had felt the change in her since the morning, the slightest hint of reluctance to look at him, to share in their clandestine bubble. But now, he saw her, framed by the darkness outside the windows, her hair down her shoulder blades as she stretched her arms above her.

It was sharp and instantaneous, the desire married with desperation. It had been less than 24 hours since he had been with her, barely an entire day in the long course of his life, but he felt unmoored without her presence. Unable to hold back any longer, his arm moved around her waist, her forehead wrinkled as her head tilted slightly, questioningly, but there were too many words necessary to explain what was happening inside of him. Instead, he brushed his mouth against her pulse, felt it beating against his skin in reaction, quickening as his nose nuzzled against the warmth of her throat.

That single touch, barely more than a graze, but it resounded deep within him. She was here, and the pieces of himself fit together again, made sense. He kissed as a blind man, eyes closed, mouth open, tongue trailing over the nerves and sinews until he discovered the soft lobe of her ear, setting his teeth loose to mar the tender flesh. She made a noise, he thought, but he was too deep now, caught in her, breathless from the scent of her skin against him and her arms lifted, moved around him, accepted.

Her hands were in his hair now, soft fingertips and then the very edge of her nails, taunting, guiding his mouth over her mouth. He would have purred in response if he wasn't so focused on finding another part of her body, any part of her, searching for a flavor he had tasted before, that was both familiar and foreign. Her neck was smoky, but her collarbone had floral undertones. His hands streaked down her sides, grasped at her hips and tugged her forward jerkily, desperation overpowering his attempts at calm.

When she responded in kind, pressed her hips back against him, hesitation fell away, leaving only the endless, greedy chanting of his blood. His hands led her astray, higher, until her legs found purchase around his waist, held him nestled between her legs, a gasp slipping from her beautifully swollen mouth. Suddenly she was against a wall, suddenly the hem of her blouse was pushed up, baring the trembling skin of her stomach, but all he could focus on was the cream-colored bra holding her breasts in. Cups of offering, and he was helpless to do anything but drink as he bowed his head in submission, a supplicant, and wrapped his mouth around the soft curve. His tongue sought out a response, and her breathy, "Fitz," wasn't enough. He found his answer in the hardening of her nipple, felt it as her thin fingers pulled on his sweater.

A moment, and it was gone, along with her blouse, embers from the flame, and then his long fingers forgot how to be gentle as they ripped her bra, saw the darkening pleasure in her wide eyes, and his mouth discovered the taste of the lovely valley between her breasts, salty-sweet, his favorite combination. He released her legs for a moment, saw her topless body glittering before him, need singing from every pore as she fumbled with his belt buckle.

A button flew to the floor, his or hers, he wasn't sure, didn't care as he pushed her slacks and panties down in a single move, down to her calves. Her hand, slightly cool, found him and he barely contained his growl as it slid up and down ever so slowly, tormenting him before he took her hands in his grasp, pinned both wrists to the wall above her head. Harsh pants sounded from his mouth, his chest heaving as he watched her for a moment, vulnerable, open, exposed. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment, before he let out hand skim her body, an explorer find alternate routes to the same delightful apex. Climbing valleys, slipping down smooth terrain, making tracks with his teeth along her shoulder.

The tiny smile playing along her lips aroused him, reminded him that they were both captivated, both the seducer. There was no filter now, her eyes unable to conceal anything as they reflected back what he felt. He felt her shiver now, but it had nothing to do with the rain outside. He released her hands and as his mouth soft rubbed against hers, he heard her quiet sob against him. When her hands glided up his back, moved along him dreamily, the atmosphere grew thick, heavy. Weighted down by the depth of their need that went beyond miles of flushed skin.

He lifted her delicate form again, repetition allowed in such exquisite cases, the circle remade as her legs bound him to her. Her hand found its way to his cheek, thumb stroking over his cheekbone as he slid fluidly inside of her, felt finally at peace as they joined together. The breath he let out was free, boundless, weightless, a floating hope for more. Her cheek rubbed against his, the rhythm steady as they moved in harmony, her low moan joining with his groan in a sinful symphony. He moved restlessly now, the time ticking counted in deepening strokes. As he touched her, moving up her waist to climb up along her ribs, he felt a sudden wetness against his skin, turned his head to look at her face.

They clung to her eyelashes, sparkled in the light of the room, her tears hanging like jewels from a chandelier before she kissed him, savoring the desperation of her tongue against his. He moved faster now, feeling her nails digging into his back to drive him on, careening closer and closer, wanton and demanding. He couldn't tell if it was her fingers digging into flesh, or his into hers, or whose mouth craved for the other, but both obliged. Suddenly, suddenly, her head fell back on a sharp cry and his deep groan responded a second later.

Neither moved, both afraid to confront the other. Her head dropped forward, her arms still around his back, fingertips now instead of nails, soothing instead of clawing. He buried his face into her throat, holding on as though his simple want for them could hold them here forever. She dragged her fingers up and down his spine before lifting her head, making noises and slowly leaning back from his body. He felt the distance instantly, a widening chasm between them. As they untangled limbs and tenacious skin, she gathered her clothes and slid them on in silence, leaving him unsure of how to proceed.

She retreated behind her desk as she got dressed again, moving more quickly than he as he slipped them back on reluctantly. His pants and sweater were quicker work than her clothes and he went to her desk, but she held up a hand, keeping him away. She needn't have, he thought, as he could still see the stains of her tears on her cheek, the glimmer of the ones she hadn't shed yet still sparkling in her dark eyes.

"We have to stop when you're president," she said, her words suffused with helplessness. He had prepared counter-arguments for everything but this, for the crime of hurting her. He wanted to allay her fears, to slay her dragons, but it seemed he was the fear, he was the dragon.

"Olivia," he whispered, a plea. He needed to touch her, but she shook her head, looking pointedly at his shoulder as though she couldn't bear to see him. Her face was somber, afraid, and he wanted to reach for her but he could see in her eyes that she wouldn't believe him now, not when she could convince herself that it was only primal, only breathless sex at night.

"Please," she said, her voice breaking.

"Okay," he replied, the sound filling the space between them. Hurt and sorrow swirled within him, the sting of her refusal to believe in them and the sadness he felt for her, her borrowed despair. He saw a flash of surprise in her eyes before it was covered by confidence, her official mask back on. Her back was to him now, a visual reminder, as he moved toward the door. The chasm split wider, the ground unsteady.

He imagined that she saw the day of his presidency as the moment of their termination, but he saw it as a deadline. It was how much time he had to convince her that he wasn't the only who felt with such heedless abandon, such careless compulsion.

**/**

She hadn't realized she had wanted a future with him with such striking urgency until it vanished from within the realm of her possibilities. Her hand pressed against her stomach as she felt, for a moment, nauseous. She turned at the sound of his footfalls, mouth half-open to stop him, to take back her foolish fears, but she saw him there, his tall body against the tall door, the image an intimate acquaintance of hers. Another choice, another abandonment. She could count the wrinkles on his sweater as he walked away.

* * *

**A/N: So, I know it's been like 84 years, but in my defense, I did write drabbles? This chapter was emotionally tiring to write. I knew it had to happen eventually, but the way I wanted this conversation between Olitz to go and how the show portrayed it as having gone are such different things. Anyway, I'm already working on the next chapter and it's one of the ones I've been wanting to write from the very start so, here's to hoping it only takes 82 years until the next one! :D As always, lovely and supportive readers, your reviews mean the world to me so feel free to comment or critique the chapter. **


	14. The Other Forty-Six

_Water__._

The single word came unbidden to her mind as she lay in bed, insomnia her only bedfellow on this warm night. She had tossed and turned for half an hour, both her body and mind exhausted from the latest approach she and Cyrus were considering to woo moderates by renegotiating their campaign strategy on tax cuts for the wealthy. They had yet to run it by Fitz, but even now, she knew this push was a long shot in getting the sort of momentum the Grant campaign needed.

She had spent the better part of her day coming up with options for them to pursue, but most of them fell outside of the few Republican beliefs Fitz upheld. It would've been easier on everyone involved if he had been a Democrat, she had thought, but tradition counted a great deal in the Grant lineage. He was the son of a Republican, who was the son of a Republican, who was the son of a Republican. His heritage asked of him things that she would not have been willing to give if she had been in his position.

Sometimes, in the quiet darkness, she allowed herself to wonder why he seemed willing to abide by someone else's rules for his own life. The idea felt so wholly foreign to someone as independent as she was, living by the unerring wisdom of her inner voice, of her gut. She wondered what his life would have been like if he'd ever thought to question the code he lived by. What if they had met first, before he and Mellie were introduced? Would the burden of his ancestors kept them from being together in the end? Shaking her head at her momentary cynicism, she sat up in bed, eyes glancing outside at the pool through the glass of the balcony door.

The shimmering surface of the pool beckoned her, the few lights still left on during the night winking at her invitingly until she found herself slipping out of bed to rummage through her travel bag in search of her bathing suit and swim cap. Within a few minutes, she had her cell phone and her keycard in her hand, shutting the door as quietly as possible behind her before heading outside, the balmy summer air less oppressive with the sun safely hidden away. The hushed silence of 3 am was a small comfort, but it wasn't what she needed. Gingerly, she slid open the heavy gate of the pool and snuck in, dropping her belongings onto a lounge chair near the pool.

Hand before feet, she climbed up the rungs of the ladder, muscle memory kicking in until she was at the top of the diving board. Stepping gracefully forward on the balls of her feet like a dancer, she stood for a moment at the end of the board before raising her arms above her head, her entire body poised in anticipation before she stepped off. Her entire body exhaled in delicious relief as she interrupted the still surface of the water and slashed through, sinking deeper and deeper, until her body swam back up to the top, kicking her legs out behind her as she felt all her worries give way to her exertion.

The muscles of her back and legs sang as she cut through the water swiftly, her mind blissfully blank as she privileged, for a moment, motion over emotion. She swam the length of the pool in one greedy gulp, not bothering to stop for breath or relief, needing to feel only the concerns of her body for a moment. Here, now, her needs were basic, vital, only lungs, heart, organs, only body. Such simple worries that she had absolute control over. It was exactly what she needed, to feel like the sole inhabitant of a magical underwater land, far removed from the headaches of her everyday life.

When she reached the end of the pool and touched her fingertips to the rough wall, she easily turned in the water and swam the length of the pool again, pushing herself further and further until her muscles screamed at her, pressing against her physical limit. This time when she reached the end, she allowed the water to lift her body to the top, dropping her head back against the edge of the pool, eyes closed as she caught her breath. She floated away from herself, from weighty words like "need," "love," "hope," _mistress,_ allowing the water to elevate her.

"You still owe me a late-night swim," a voice interrupted. The atmosphere tensed immediately, the sensation of sinking clawing at her, the water transformed into quicksand at the sound of him, pinned down to reality by his presence. Slowly, she leaned back further to look up at him, eyelids reluctant as they lifted to allow him in.

**/**

His mind raced from as he lay in bed, Mellie's sleeping form reminding him with every rise and fall of her chest of the life he wanted. Entire days had passed since he and Olivia had stolen more than a handful of moments together. She had become more vigilant about avoiding him, but he refused to be swayed from his mission of making her see what was inside of herself. Nothing real ever had neat lines and perfectly defined boundaries. Love was a messy art form, abstract and fluid. He had quietly climbed out of the cold bed, headed toward the mini-bar in the room before movement caught his attention.

He knew her form instantly, even in the dark with only a handful of twinkling lights to frame her body. Silently, he tiptoed around the bed to his suitcase, finding the single pair of swim trunks Mellie had packed for him at the bottom. Swiftly, he changed into them before heading outside. The sudden heat of the night air was a refreshing change from the frostbite of his dead marriage. He rested his hip against the back of the lounge chair, dropping his room keycard onto the chair beside her belongings.

He watched her body slashed gracefully through the water, the white of her bathing suit a stark contrast beneath the dark skin of the pool at nighttime. Not wanting to interrupt her mid-lap, he patiently sat at the edge, watched as she found her way back to him, leaning her head back as her breath released in low pants.

He spoke, _"__You still owe me a late-night swim"_ and she kept her eyes closed for a moment, as though she refused to acknowledge him. He added another hurt to the pile of their past grievances, but brushed it aside as he dipped his feet into the water.

"Shouldn't you be getting your beauty rest?" she asked him, her usually playful tone laced with something more harsh, metallic, tainting the taste of her words. He ignored it.

"It's a magical time of night, you know," he said, his words barely above a whisper before he slid forward into the pool, the water barely moving to acknowledge his presence there. He didn't turn toward her, and she made no effort to move, and suddenly, he felt the familiar return of frostbite. But this was a battle worth fighting, a life worth having.

"What makes it so magical?" she wondered aloud.

"You can say things at 3 am that you wouldn't say during the day. You can share secrets and trade war stories. You can be brave," he replied, looking out straight ahead, knowing if he met her eyes she would shy away again. He could feel the tension coming off her in waves, but he made room between them for her baggage.

"Being brave and being foolish are two very different things," she retorted.

"Tell me a secret anyway."

The words pricked her skin, before settling, the scars retreating inside to an invisible place. Another shared secret, she thought, thrown haphazardly on top of one another like kindling for a fire. They reminded her that what they had was the opposite of ideal, an endless round of lusty, forbidden sex, wanton, shameful. Better suited to hidden places, stolen moments, past regrets.

She imagined that one day in the future, he would remember her fondly, a passing thought when he discovered his campaign pin or another bit of scrap metal. To him, she would be another past memory that brought him half a smile. In the wider sphere of history, she would become just another woman who'd indulged in the political cycle of adultery. A cliche. She tried to remind herself, to convince herself, that this was the reality of their situation.

His elbow impatiently nudged her from her thoughts, but her own concerns held her own. She had to focus on her floating form before she could find something to say. Watching a shard of moonlight poignantly dance over the dark skin of the water, she answered.

"I was captain of the swim team in high school," she shared, slicing off a tiny bit of herself to feed to him.

"Of course you were." Her eyebrows knitted in irritation

"What does that mean?" she asked, her tone defensive.

"You swim like someone who's as comfortable in the water as they are on land, like someone who's had a great deal of practice swimming. And if you were on the swim team, then you were definitely the captain."

"Aren't you clever?" she proclaimed wryly.

"I'm a quick study in subjects that catch my interest."

"And is that what I did? I caught your interest?" The layer of playfulness failed to hide the undercurrent of bitterness, and lower still, a core of hurt. Her arms crossed over her chest in protection, a move meant to distance them, but it made him reach out for her, touching her as he'd stopped himself from doing since he had found his way to her in the darkness. He guided her to him silently, his hand sliding to her shoulder to turn her until she faced him.

He saw the reluctance there, in the straight line of her mouth and the slight squint of her eyes, but his hand cupped her cheek and allowed the pad of his thumb to brush along the full curve of her bottom lip. He knew words: simple, straightforward ones; beautiful, poetic ones; tragic, devastating ones. But they all failed to encompass what existed there between them. Instead, he floated closer in the cool water, until her body brushed against his, and leaned in to press his mouth to a spot high on her cheek. The same spot he had seen a tear glistening on the last time they had been alone together. He kissed away her invisible sorrows, his hand still gentle as it fell away from her face and glided down her body, slow, as though discovering her anew.

He nuzzled her against him, moving her closer with an innocence, a gentleness that surprised them both. His mouth dotted tiny kisses along her cheek, lower, before finding her own, and she waited, for the flash of heat, the sudden digging of his fingers into her flesh but it never came. His mouth was only a breeze over hers, as though tasting her for the first time, sampling her. Her hands lifted to his shoulders, resting there, caught between pushing him away and clinging needily. His tongue indulged in a lazy, lingering lick of her bottom lip, but didn't press inward, didn't seek out her own.

Her own lips parted, expecting desperation, passion, fire, but he offered her warmth instead. Somewhere inside of her, a dull ache awakened at his tenderness, her mind floating along with her body. The tension she had felt for the evening slowly slid away from her, the feel of his fingers lazily brushing along her spine cleansing her of the ugliness between them. The heavy weight of being something shameful lifted from her and for a moment, she could pretend that they weren't an impossibility.

"Look at me," he mumbled. She shook her head, afraid to open her eyes and see what was there in his. He swept two kisses over her eyelids, urging her to be bold and slowly, with his fingertips still on her cheeks, she obliged. He met her wariness with resolve, confidently, the strength of his conviction in them instantly visible. She wanted to look away, to deny that she wanted any of this, that she was a willing participant in this foolishness.

"See me," he whispered, the words measured as he peered down at her, needing her to grasp what he was offering. The small voice inside of her urged her towards protection, nudging her back to safety behind her carefully constructed walls, but she couldn't think clearly, not when faced his pain. She had never been able to turn away from someone in need and her eyes stung in response to his need, an instinctual response.

"One minute," came her reply, a wistful sigh. Slowly, she slipped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder, the singular movement an offering of comfort to him and a soothing serum to her own pain. Their intertwined bodies bobbed in the water, the sound of their breathing magnified by the silence of the night, the gentle undulations of the water. She could feel the warmth of his body against the slight chill of the water, could feel his fingers wandering along her spine.

Nothing existed in the world except for the way her cheek fit perfectly into the nook where shoulder and neck kissed, the rhythm of her heart thudding underneath her delicate skin. He could feel his need for her bouncing inside of him, demanding that he remind her with fingertips and lips and skin rubbing against skin how deep, how endless, how essential she was. But he picked her over his own desires, over himself.

And in that magical hour with the wind murmuring through the trees and the stars sparkling like wishes on the shadowy blanket of water, they held on to each other as buoys, a protection against a world that endlessly dragged them down. They clung to one another as a measure against drowning.

**/**

An hour later, they were cozily tucked away in her hotel room, his body laying prone on the bed beneath her, her negligible weight resting atop his, sharp chin pressing on his chest as she met his eyes. Some of the tension had eased out of them as they'd slowly untangled themselves and made their way back to her hotel room. Perhaps he had been right about 3 am, because when he'd taken her hand, she'd let him hold it all the way back to her room.

Now, she tilted her head to the side, pinching his bicep as the line between her brows returned.

"I told you one of mine, but you haven't told me one of yours."

"Hmm," the word rumbled out of his chest, the reverberations felt against her arm.

"I know you've accumulated some secrets in all your years," she teased. He raised an eyebrow at her before wrapping his arms around her waist and rolling her underneath him, peering down at her with a feigned frown that had a giddy laugh bubbling from her throat. Slipping her arms around his neck, she played with the curls at the edge of his scalp.

"You're not getting out of this just because you use brute force" she murmured, ignoring her urge to nuzzle into him and let him do just that. He raised an eyebrow before his hand snuck down along her side, making her wriggle underneath him. Wrinkling his nose as he resigned himself to the idea, he rolled over onto his side so he could lazily stroke his fingers over her stomach.

"In high school, I voted for my opponent when I ran for class president," he shared, a half-smile playing on his lips, as though he couldn't quite decide if the memory was a pleasant one.

"How scandalous," she drawled out. He gave her a look that made her chuckle again, brushing a hand along his forearm as she turned onto her side to face him. "Were they the better candidate?"

"No, I just didn't want to be class president."

"But you ran anyway."

"My father thought it was important," he responded tersely, his gaze focused purposefully on her shoulder.

"Did you ever tell him you didn't want to run?"

He looked at her now, his face suddenly weighed down by the recollection of past frailties and current entrapments.

"I...couldn't," he whispered, as though it pained him to say it. She nodded, offering him support, but for just a moment, she wondered if there was an entire side of him that she didn't know. His sky blue eyes were clouded now and she nearly regretted having brought it up in the first place, but it felt necessary.

He blinked and looked off into the distance, noticing the translucence of the night sky that hinted at morning.

"I should get going," he announced. This time her nod of assent was genuine and she sat up in bed, watching him as he looked around the room before finding his keycard on top of the dresser. Leaning in, he cupped her cheek in his palm and stole another kiss, this one with the familiar trace of his fervor. He looked back at her for just a second, momentarily entranced by her even across the room, before slipping out the door. She wondered what particularly imaginative excuse he'd come up with if Mellie was awake when he returned to their room, trying with great difficulty not to linger on the word _their_.

Instead, she lay back in the spot he'd inhabited only a moment ago, feeling his warmth endure despite his absence. Now that she was alone, she thought about him again, considering the new information he'd given her. He had gone against his instincts, his personal desires, for the sake of loyalty, for tradition, and deeper yet, for love. Hadn't she spent entire hours considering this exact puzzle before, wondered previously if love was only the slow sublimation of yourself for the sake of another. A tumor. A simple accident, the fates aligning in discord, and stealthily, steadily, it grew in size, eventually metastasizing into something gruesome, abhorrent and unrecognizable, and destructive. Reducing the infected party to a weakened mutation of its former self, a slow unraveling. Did anyone ever survive it?

**/**

* * *

**A/N: I still don't think I'm over the season finale. I originally planned to take this chapter somewhere lighter, but I ended up grappling with Olivia's perspective on love and this came out. As always, dear readers, reviews and comments are a delight and make me adore you. **


	15. The Other Forty-Five

_"If I say yes, will you stop talking about the campaign for 20 minutes?"_

_"Why?"_

The coy question lingered, hanging heavily in the air as his long fingers nimbly tugged pale lace down slender thighs, using the flat of his tongue to torment her as he licked a trail upward. The thin fabric soundlessly feel to the floor as he slid higher up, wide palms gently parting her thighs, nudging his nose along the protrusion of her hipbone teasingly. A taunting kiss, almost where she wanted him most, and then a taste, an answering tremor. Another, more demanding, an aching arch of her back on the bed as her hands turned to fists on the bedsheets. He tried to focus on the intimate flesh before him, slippery slick, to empty himself of anything but her, but the hollow pangs of his past clawed tenaciously at his mind, leftovers from the earlier conversation about inviting Big Gerry.

Despite the taste of her coating his tongue, the half-moon curve of her back, the desperate mewls spilling from her throat as he coaxed her beyond the restraints of propriety and control, he couldn't be present in the beauty of the moment with her. He went through the motions, feeling her fingers greedily driving into his thick, dark locks, holding, guiding him exactly where she wanted, wantonly lost in pleasure. Two fingers and a few swipes with the pad of his tongue later, she exploded with a joyful cry, a shudder, an exhale, breath tangled as her grasp on his scalp loosened. He slid upward fluidly, high enough to rest his head against the flat surface of her slightly-damp stomach, using his thumb to traipse along the ridge of her other hipbone.

Somehow, despite the whirling worries wobbling inside of him, he couldn't help but notice how lovely her bones were, delicate yet straining against the thin barrier of skin to escape. But even the lazy glide of her fingers along the back of his neck failed to draw him from the depth of his reverie and she could feel the tension inside of him, letting her palm rest on his shoulder, hoping the solid strength of her hand offered something akin to comfort.

His mouth opened before he could think of the consequences.

"I lose my words when he's around," he whispered, his mouth resting against her flesh as he spoke, half-muffled against her.

"Hmm?" she asked softly, unsure in that moment what he needed from her. As the mist of their erotic interlude slowly began to lift from her mind, she could feel some small part of her attempting to retreat back inside of herself, salvaging whatever fragments she had left at her disposal. She felt entirely too vulnerable wearing a t-shirt with his name proudly splashed across her chest, too exposed. But she forced herself to remain, could very nearly feel the need emanating from his pores.

"I used to read a lot as a kid, inherited it from my mom," he told her, his voice tinged with emotion at the last word before he forced himself to continue. "Anyway, I would make up all these wild stories and she got a real kick out of them, thought it was great that I had an active imagination. But my...Big Gerry didn't think that a good use of his son's time, too common, too middle-class for the governor's son."

He paused, letting his hands wander upward along the bare expanse of skin, tip-toeing along the rungs of her ribcage before resting on the bottom slope of her breast. She added nothing, letting him guide them forward into unfamiliar territory, the ground beneath them shifting into something simultaneously solid yet frightening. Their rumpled bedsheets and bruising touches hadn't led them to anything quite as serious, as heavy before.

"So I stopped. I stopped telling stories when he was around. I tried to impress him in other ways, but those tactics didn't seem to work either, and then I just..." he trailed off for a moment, knowing he was rambling but the feelings were poison and if he sucked it out himself, despite the pain, he might be whole again. He might survive.

"Eventually, I just stopped speaking altogether whenever he was around. It was the only foolproof plan to guarantee his approval. I wandered around mansions like a bashful mute, silent and stoic. He...took my words from me."

She remained silent, eyes open and focused on the top of his head, listening as he peeled back the layers of toughened skin he'd managed to accumulate over the years, sliding them back inch by inch until she could see the angry, scarred memories of his past pulsing back at her. This time, she sat up a little, enough to lean forward and drop a kiss to his temple, a brush of lips against skin before straightening fully, a visible reminder of strength as she cupped his cheek in her palm for just a moment.

"You took them back," she breathed, meeting his eyes now as he looked up at her, the tumult of his past trauma visible in their clouded blue. The moment seemed to call for encouragement and she gave it freely, despite the nagging whisper in her mind that the words she was about to offer him were hollow. "We're not the same helpless children we once were, Fitz. You're stronger now than you were before. You're better."

The strain in his expression cleared as her words hung in the air, fluttering, shimmering between them like hope. She nearly resented herself for giving him false hope, feeding sickly-sweet lies instead of the sour tang of truth, but her weakness for him never seemed to abate. With a gentleness that drew a deep pang from somewhere inside of her, she found his mouth with hers, eyes closed as she attempted to comfort him with the closeness, the intimacy of the kiss.

**/**

Only a few days later, she watched her promises break apart at the seams as Fitz turned inward, pressed his lips together and kept them closed permanently. His natural charisma, a flame that had drawn them all to him like moths, began to sputter out, slowly diminishing until she wondered how she could even begin to pull him out of himself again. If she delved that deep inside of him, if she gave him that much honesty, it would cost her a great deal.

Worse, she sat idly by, her facial features carefully crafted, held taut, as he was reduced to that exact child he had been terrified, mortified, of becoming. In a room filled with past crimes, ripe, almost tangible, she watched Fitz throw a temper tantrum as he snarked at his father. Only he had spent years honing the barbs, so that the simmering resentments had brewed into fresh, dark hatred.

**/**

Fitz gaped at the bottom of the glass tumbler, wondering where exactly the alcohol had gone before he chuckled wryly to himself, realizing he'd consumed it all. It had had a keen edge, but he didn't mind that when it settled into something soothingly smoky inside of him. He tried not to stare directly at Olivia as the sensations steeped inside of him. She was pretty. She was so very pretty and looked so very out of reach as she sat beside him.

He could almost feel the waves of disapproval radiating from her body, the sharp glare she gave him when he snapped back at his father's words. His father's world was a jagged place, where every touch wounded, and he could nearly feel the tiny dots of blood beading inside of him like rubies. Olivia had told him that he was better than this and he clung to that as he made each embittered repartee. The anger inside of was ruining the gauzy smoothness of his drunken stupor and he let it spew it out in a disparaging retort.

_"I'm just wondering if it's from his vast experience running for President. Oh, yeah, you never ran, did you? 'Cause men who get caught sleeping with prostitutes don't get to be leader of the free world."_

It was Mellie's voice now, abrupt and cold, and he tuned them all out, focused on refilling the glass. He never felt warm enough with her. Their marriage was a shivering, shuddering sham, just like his parents' marriage, and his grandparents' marriage. What a lovely little cycle of failure he'd fallen into. He dug the nails on one hand into his palm as the other poured out more of the delicious amber liquid. Warm. Like Olivia's eyes when he nuzzled into her clavicle, when she forgot to keep her barrier carefully in place.

He heard the room slowly empty, expecting to turn around and find Olivia there, waiting for him, but when he finally turned, there was no one there to meet his gaze. He was alone.

Again.

Always.

**/**

She flinched instantly, slapped back by the words that rang out in the room. Mellie made some attempt at easing the tension in the room, but the world outside drifted away from her on a current as everything inside of her focused on what he had just said. On what Fitz had just insinuated. She heard a door open and close behind her, nudging her back toward the reality of everyone else's presence. Mellie looked at her across the table, her face considering the options before breaking eye contact.

Some polite excuse for the early night found its way to Olivia's mouth and she let it fall, clutching her purse with fingers that had gone cold, even as she couldn't keep Fitz's words from burning inside of her. Something inside of her, somewhere she had feared acknowledging, small and vulnerable and devastatingly needy, cowered as she heard the echoes playing inside of her mind, over and over again. _Prostitute, _she recalled, felt the ugliness of the word, a hideous accusation, and her mind had made the leap instantly. Prostitute. Mistress. The animosity in his voice as she spoke had threatened to dazzle her and she felt her instinct to flee spark back to life.

She strode into the elevator, longing for the promising sound of the doors closing around her before she let the emotions she'd barely managed to rein in escape from her, but his treacherous hand moved into the space. Her shoulders wanted to slump, to turn inward, curling up to feel some semblance of warmth again, but she straightened, bracing herself for the ensuing interaction. The smell of whiskey wafted inside the elevator before his body stepped inside, invading her momentary haven.

_"You didn't wait for me."_

She said nothing, silently moving to one side of the elevator as he moved forward, closer to her.

"Livvie," he asked, his steps unsteady, his voice thick and low. When she remained silent and only folded her arms more tightly around herself, his eyebrows quirked upward as he brushed a palm to her shoulder, the simple touch making her jerk away instantly.

"Olivia?" he wondered aloud, baffled by her reaction. He tried to remember what he'd done recently, but the blur of the whiskey mingled with only the dregs of his frustration at his father and he found nothing as he searched. "Did I do something?"

"No," she replied, but it was too quick, too raw for him to believe her. He watched as she strode away from him to push the button of her floor before rummaging around in her purse. She tried to make herself focus on the task of finding her keycard, to ignore the concern clear in his eyes, feeling everything inside of her tumble until they were tangled together, hate, anger, misery, pity. A weighty burden coated in shame. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the movement of his hand as he reached for her again and this time, she couldn't stop herself as the force of what was inside her pushed her into action, swatting his hand away from her.

"No," she repeated, the word nearly a hiss under her breath, but she reached inside for the frigid bite of disgust. "You don't get to touch me."

She turned to face him, bracing herself for the sudden sight of hurt in his eyes as he looked down at his hand and then back up at her, confused and still slightly glazed from the alcohol.

"Men who get caught sleeping with prostitutes don't get to be leader of the free world, right? And what about men who get caught sleeping with their mistresses, hmm? What happens to them?" The word sprang at him but her voice stayed low, controlled as she confronted him with her own pain.

"What happens to the mistress?" she added, barely a whisper now as she faced the doors. Refusing to look at him again, she stared silently ahead, even as bitter taste of her own acrimony rose in her throat, swirled inside of her mouth, making her grind her teeth together. She heard him make some quiet noise behind her but thankfully, the elevator door dinged open and Mellie's face peered back at them, one eyebrow slowly arching upward before her glance moved over to Fitz.

"There you are. I've been wondering where you've been," Olivia heard Mellie start using the moment to slip out of the elevator, clenching her hands into fists as she nearly ran down the length of the hall, feeling the slow start of a sob catch in her throat. It pushed past her lips and rang out as she slid her keycard into the lock before stumbling inside, letting the door slide closed as she slid bonelessly to the floor. With her knees pulled up to her chest, she buried her face in her palms and gave in to the tumult.

**/**

Two days later, she dressed carefully, buttoning up her armor purposefully, focusing her mind on the task of getting him prepared for the upcoming debate with Governor Reston. This was what she had been brought here to do. More, this was what she _could_ do. She didn't feel unsure or unworthy in the political arena. It was where she thrived. She could build an entire life in this sphere and be content for the rest of her life. When she sighed before she could stifle it, she wondered how long it would take for her to believe it.

She clung to her work ethic for the rest of the day, arranging everything behind the scene while she let someone else handle prepping Fitz with questions. It worked well for the first half of the day until she saw the terrified looks on the faces of new interns as they came back to the makeshift office they'd set up in the town hall.

"I told you not to respond to him directly," a young girl with her blond hair pulled up into a sleek ponytail told a taller intern with wavy black hair.

"He asked me where the notes were. I assumed that meant he wanted the notes and since I had the notes, I assumed he wanted them from me. So I gave him the notes."

"Yes, but you made eye contact even after I warned you. I gave you the look!" the girl informed her, putting her hands on her hips.

Olivia registered this information before letting out an irritated exhale, leaving her unfinished mug of coffee on the desk as she went to deal with the intolerable attitude that Fitz had adopted since Big Gerry's arrival. She knew eventually she would have to deal with the turmoil she'd given in to the night of the dinner, but the time wasn't now. Now, she had a candidate to calm and an election to win. Striding off to the main hall of the building, she heard Fitz haranguing Jason, who nearly cowered in the corner as he worked diligently to get the microphone system working.

"_Governor!"_ she called out sharply, loud enough to be noticed. The moment he turned toward her, his mask of anger slipped for a moment and she noticed the dark circles underneath the new dullness of his eyes, the tightness around his mouth as they opened again to speak. But the ensuing whine of the speaker system kicking into gear rapped against the bubble of the moment and she spoke again to the rest of the people in the room, dismissing them with a few words to laud their efforts. The quiet shuffle of footsteps broke the silence as the rest of the staffers and interns filed out of the room, speaking to one another in hushed tones, as though afraid to draw the attention of their candidate.

He stared at her as she stood on the opposite side of the stage, her hip crooked out, her hands by her sides, but her entire body speaking of power, of purpose. Everything inside of him wanted to break through the veneer of professionalism and his lips parted to speak her name, to plead with her to explain what shifted things between them suddenly, but she interrupted him.

_"Those people are working their butts off for you."_

**_/_**

_"So who are you, and why do you want to be President?"_

His black shoes gleamed against the plush red of the carpet, his head bowed as the echoes of her question seemed to ring out in the room. She had stormed off after her impassioned speech, leaving him there to wonder about the answer that he'd been afraid to seek out before. He began to pace, following the outline of the red circle. The last time Karen and Gerry had come home for a visit, he'd spent a carefree day with them at the San Diego Zoo. Karen had insisted they stop at the lions and she'd chattered happily on about how soft their manes looked and pretty they were. But Fitz had felt just a flash of discomfort as he watched the lion wandering around the edges of the lion area.

He could empathize now. Pacing came naturally to a caged animal. He walked the same area endlessly, hoping to find some trick door, some hidden exit he hadn't considered before, but this was his life. He was trapped inside of his past, inside of the reality of his withering marriage, his personal failings. Her question didn't change anything, but it offered him a way forward, an opportunity to test the boundaries of his political enclosure. "_Why?"_ his imagination demanded, again and again.

Because he never wanted her to look at him as she had in the elevator, with agony and revulsion dueling in her eyes.

Because he wanted to change his whole world to fit her into it.

Because he wanted to change the world.

The honest answered loomed at the edge of his grasp and he lifted his head, staring directly in the direction in which she'd left. Nothing inside of him made sense without her, as though his life had rearranged itself to make room for her existence and without her, it was a cavern. Everything echoed in the enormity of her absence. He followed in her path, finding her at the outskirt of nearly empty room, organizing the pamphlets for the town hall. Waiting silently near the entrance as the last few people left, he saw the tensing of her spine as she noted his presence.

"You need your beauty sleep for the debate," she reminded him, still facing the opposite direction as he stepped closer.

"I didn't mean...he was...it's not the same," he finally settled on, hating himself for the lack of conviction in his voice.

"Alright," she answered, leaning back to look over the pile of campaign flyers and brochures they would be handing out. The placid tone of her voice had him moving closer, but afraid to touch her.

"Will you look at me?"

She turned around, an amicable expression glued onto her face, a damningly distant look in her eyes.

"It's not the same. This," he gestured between them, as though there was an invisible string binding them together. "is not the same as what my father did."

"He had an affair while he was married to your mother. He had mistresses. The scenarios are similar at the very least," she informed him before moving over to where she'd left her purse. The fear that spurted inside of him at her politeness made him act without thought.

"You're not my mistress," he insisted, taking the three steps separating them until he could gently cup her elbows in his palms, forcing her to look up at him. When he spoke again, the fierce undertone of the words made her momentarily breathless. "You're a part of me. I...need you. It is _not_ the same."

A cynical part of her wondered if he was trying to convince her of the significance of their relationship or if he was trying to convince both of them that he wasn't his father, that he hadn't fallen down the same rabbit's hole of nature and nurture into some horrid wonderland. She wanted to be honest with him, to tell him the depth of her devastation at his careless accusations, but her own words were thrown back in her face. "_I know you because you let me know you._" And she knew that if she allowed herself to unleash the brutality of her honesty, he wouldn't perform the following day. So, she nodded instead, forcing her feelings aside.

"Okay," she whispered, kissing his cheek softly before grabbing her purse. "You still need to get some rest."

She left the room before he could even begin to make sense of what had just happened.

**/**

The next day, she was all confident pep talk and hopefully bright eyes.

Behind her stood his father, disdain etched into the handful of wrinkles on his otherwise firm skin. Cyrus' nervous was almost palpable as he leaned forward on the balls of his feet, wanting to say something but unable to find the right thing to say. Instead it was Olivia's face that looked up at him as he stood on the precipice of his future. It was her voice that cut through everything else, that made all the worries of the past few days settle for a moment, until he felt a warmth similar to the whiskey. Only this time, it was accompanied by the memory of the last time she had gazed up at him almost like this, only she'd been closer then.

_"You have to earn it like any other candidate."_

Because he wanted to earn her vote. Clarity, bright and crystalline, sparkled through at the flashback and he understood exactly what he had to do.

_"Now show them who you are."_

**_/_**

**A/N: Dear readers, thank you so much for staying with this story even though this update took me a month. It was the accompanying piece to 2x11 and since it's my favorite episode, it took me the longest because it gives me all the feels. You know I live for your comments, critiques and fangirling, so I hope you'll review! Every single comment that you all have left me pushes me to keep writing, so thank you! **


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